Figure 5 - uploaded by John Edward Rawlins
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Maps of Central America and the Caribbean showing the distribution of Papilio homerus. (A) Map showing the location of Jamaica relative to the other Caribbean islands and Central America. The inset (bottom right) shows the range of the extant P. homerus populations (yellow) in the Cockpit Country and the Blue and John Crow Mountains, Jamaica. (B) Papilio garamas (from Honduras and other regions of Central America, top left image) and P. homerus (only found in Jamaica, bottom right) putatively share a recent common ancestor. Fluctuations in the sea level might have extended the mainland of Central America and created islands in the past (areas shown in purple) that would have acted as stepping stones for the common ancestors of P. garamas and P. homerus to move to Jamaica and speciate. Shown here is a female of P. garamas electryon Bates 1864 captured from El Salvador in 1969. All maps were acquired from Google Earth ® .
Source publication
The Homerus swallowtail, Papilio (Pterourus) homerus Fabricius, is listed as an endangered species and is endemic to the Caribbean island of Jamaica. The largest butterfly in the Western Hemisphere, P. homerus once inhabited seven of Jamaica’s 14 parishes and consisted of at least three populations; however, now only two stronghold populations rema...
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Citations
... In the less strict Appendix II, instead, there are 36 species of tarantulas, 5 species of Pandinus scorpions, 1 species of stag beetle, and several species of butterfly belonging to 8 genera, all related to species collecting for the pet trade (CITES, 2019;Fukushima et al., 2019). As bug smuggling represents a significant business (Actman, 2019), illegal trade is considered to be a serious but many times overlooked threat to arthropod populations (Tournant et al., 2012;Lehnert et al., 2017;Fukushima et al., 2019;Cardoso et al., 2020). However, it should be noted that invertebrates currently listed in CITES and IUCN are just the tip of the iceberg: the numbers of traded taxa in such databases are a gross underestimation of what is really traded. ...
Legal and illegal wildlife trade is a multibillion dollar industry that is driving several species toward extinction. Even though wildlife trade permeates the Tree of Life, most analyses to date focused on the trade of a small selection of charismatic vertebrate species. Given that vertebrate taxa represent only 3% of described species, this is a significant bias that prevents the development of comprehensive conservation strategies. In this short contribution, we discuss the significance of global wildlife trade considering the full diversity of organisms for which data are available in the IUCN database. We emphasize the importance of being fast and effective in filling the knowledge gaps about non-vertebrate life forms, in order to achieve an in-depth understanding of global trading patterns across the full canopy of the Tree of Life, and not just its most appealing twig.
Renowned Lepidopterist, Dr. John E. Rawlins, Curator Emeritus of the Section of Invertebrate Zoology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, passed away on December 26, 2021, at the age of 71 in Gilbert, Arizona. He had a distinguished 33-year career at the museum where he served as the head of section for that entire period. Herein, we give a summary of John's life, our remembrances, and stories of his adventures, and elucidate the profound impact he had on the direction, care, and growth of the insect collections at Carnegie Museum, especially during a time when museums worldwide have been hard hit by financial shortfalls and drastic declines in staffing.
This chapter discusses the term "butterfly house" is taken to imply a collection, open to the public, of which free-flying butterflies occupy a prominent part. Colorful insects, especially butterflies, have long commanded interest and attention. The butterfly trade has been used to win local support for the conservation of such habitats, by establishing butterfly farming as an alternative livelihood by adjacent communities. In designing an environment for a butterfly house, especially one that encompasses an outdoor area for native species, use can be made of experience and publications relating to habitat creation under field conditions. Butterfly houses that wish not only to keep but also breed Lepidoptera can benefit greatly from the experience and skills of "amateur" entomologists. Butterflies or larvae may need to be immobilized for treatment or for management reasons. Education, research, and conservation are all fields of activity in which modern "zoos," including butterfly houses, should participate.
