Two new Colias ponteni and a pupa!

Two new Colias ponténi and a pupa!

We had a lucky night on October 12, 2000, when I had a giant piece of very good “lucky flutter” (as one may say about a butterfly find), in a preview of the new Museum of Evolution in Uppsala, and discovered two more, so far quite unknown, males of Colias ponteni, but not only this, the best of everything so far, a pupa that with very high probability is a Colias ponteni!

This pupa discovery I hope may be another clue to help solve the mystery of where this butterfly comes from. The find at “Zootis” in Uppsala, the Museum of Evolution in Uppsala, also eliminates a great deal of the doubts we previously encountered whether the priest Samuel Benjamin Pontén really caught the butterflies himself. Why would he otherwise have kept this unique find in his own collection? See also my friend Jan Isidorsson´s picture from this lucky evening in Appendix 6, page 100 in this article.

Speaking of labels. The two butterflies and the pupa I found on this amazing evening in connection with the reopening of the newly renovated Evolutionary Museum in Uppsala, all bore the cryptic label: “coll. Strängnäs High School. Cabinet 4, Drawer ‘Tahiti’ ”. However, this information should be given less weight. The explanation for this is, as I pointed out in the introduction to this article, that Samuel Pontén's brother Jonas Otto was a teacher at the said school in Strängnäs. Of all the butterflies Samuel Pontén brought home to his brother from the journey on Eugenie, a number of the labels "Tahiti" are worn. Other butterflies that Samuel brought home to his brother carry the labels "New Holland", "Ascension", "Manila", "Foua", "Chatam", "Galapagos" and the two most interesting labels "Honolulu" for some monarch butterflies, Danaus plexippus of both sexes and "Magellans Sund" (Strait of Magellan) for a male of the Nymphalidae Phalanta phalanta, probably the nominal phalanta that is common across much of Southeast Asia. On the basis of Pontén's specimens to exactly determine where this butterfly was collected is difficult, but so much is clear that along the Strait of Magellan it does not fly. In any case, Samuel Ponten had not collected that specimen as he, as far as I could find, was not even ashore during the frigate Eugenie's landings along this strait. These labels, which were obviously written long after the brother Jonas Otto received the butterflies at his school from Samuel Pontén, we must take with great scepticism.

Göran Sjöberg who had just discovered at the Museum of Evolution Uppsala, that there were two males and probably also a pupa of Colias ponteni which Samuel Pontén collected for his brother Jonas Otto Pontén, who was a teacher at Strängnäs High School and also a private naturalist collector. I am here with my retired friend, the curator Lars Hedström at this museum who showed me the greatest helpfulness and always accommodating my questions and ideas. Photo Jan Isidorsson.

Among the butterflies that, like the two Colias ponteni, carry the label "Tahiti" can be mentioned a number of Hypolimnas bolina. Probably the subspecies nerina that occurs in eastern Australia. Some examples of Hypolimnas bolina are also similar to the montrouzieri subspecies. However, these specimens lack collection labels. "Tahiti" also stands as a collection area for the Nymphalidae: P. phalanta and Euploeaa core and some Melanitis leda. The latter is also included among the species with the collection label "New Holland" which was the usual name for Australia at this time. Frigate Eugenie visited Sydney for 10 days at the end of October 1852. However, several of these species labelled "New Holland", for example Junonia orithya do not fly in South Australia where Sydney is located, which is why it is unlikely that Samuel Pontén himself collected all these butterflies. Among the butterflies with the collection label “New Holland” can also be mentioned Vanessa itea, Hypocysta pseudirius, Heteronympha merope and Tisiphone abeona. Some Pierids and Lycaenids carry the label "Manila" as well as the Satyrid Ptychandra schadenberg. Five “Blues” of the Galapagos Islands endemic Leptotes parrhasioides carry the label "Galapagos" I get the feeling that at least these Blues, Samuel Pontén should have collected himself. From "Galapagos" there are also two Phoebos agarithe in Pontén's own collection. Obviously, however, neither Samuel nor his brother Jonas Otto put particular emphasis on exactly specifying or worrying about where the respective butterfly was collected. For them it was probably enough that the butterflies came from the other side of the globe! This should in any case apply to the butterflies that priest Samuel Pontén had kept for his brother's own sake. I think we must remember that these two brothers, both amateurs, just collected butterflies mostly because the brightness of those insects and 170 years ago the exact localities were not so important!

I think it is a bit presumptuous that some researchers today amuse themselves about the fact that these travelers on this voyage 170 years ago were not as accurate as we are today with exact local details. After all, one wonders how these "experts" can say so confidently that Butler's statement about Port Famine would be correct. One only needs to go back 70 years from 1850, i.e. at the end of the 18th century, and there were regularly missing local details on exotic insects that were collected.

Of course, the fact that the two Colias ponteni butterflies in the Evolution Museum's collections could have been be collected in Tahiti, which neither of the fellow travelers claim, is of course completely excluded. Curator Lars Hedström has also personally told me that in 1968 the Department of Zoology at Uppsala University received this collection from Strängnäs High School.