Knee deep in mud, attacked by blood-sucking leeches and pestered by savage mosquitoes, while vainly pursuing butterflies that refuse to descend from the canopy high above – this is butterflying in the tropical rainforest.
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The Aurelian had hoped to write a short, witty piece about speciation in butterflies. He thought he understood the issues, but just to be sure, started reading and re-reading books and papers on the subject.
Big mistake.
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Have you read Darwin’s “On The Origin of the Species?”
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It’s been a long, wet winter here in Western Australia. One of the wettest on record.
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It’s not a contest any species would want to win, but there seems to be one undisputed contender for the title of Australia’s rarest butterfly.
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Sooner or later, every lepidopterist gets asked the inevitable question by a friend. What’s the difference between a butterfly and a moth?
The Aurelian’s response is always the same. How long have you got?
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We know that some butterflies are more common that others. We usefully distinguish between the generalists – those insects that can be found pretty much anywhere, and the habitat specialists, whether that specialism is mountains, woodland, mangroves, rain forest or whatever. But what does it take for a butterfly to be accurately called “scarce”?
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It’s no surprise that logical natural frontiers like mountain ranges provide good butterfly locations. But what about illogical frontiers?
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The Aurelian was bumping around on the back seat of a minibus when the conversation turned to the topic of migration. Yes, many butterflies migrate, that much is in escapable, but why do they bother?
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There’s a spot just twenty minutes drive from the heart of Sofia in Bulgaria. It’s a wooded area where a small stream joins a larger river alongside the main road, near enough the city that there’s a bus stop. Nothing remarkable, that’s it in the photograph. You could drive past on your daily commute for years, and never feel a need to stop.
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