wingspan : 40 mm
for reasons we explain on the new facts page,
1 – we consider tringa and humboldtii to be two distinct species,
2 – we keep the name humboldtii for the butterflies on this slide.
we found Perisama humboldtii exclusively in the upper Pastaza valley ; it seems to be rare in Sangay NP.
unlike Perisama tringa, P. humboldtii flies on both sides of the Andes, and, from our own experience, it is not so rare in Reserva Cotacachi as it is in Sangay NP.
anything, and its opposite, has been said and done about Perisama tringa and humboldtii.
1 – unwarranted changes in taxonomy
- Perisama humboldtii was described in 1844 by Guérin Ménéville,
- Perisama tringa in 1872 by Guénée,
- why was it necessary to make tringa a subspecies of humboldtii, and, it seems, without any valid reason ?
- Stéphane Attal and Alain Crosson du Cormier maintained tringa and humboldtii as two distinct species in their 1996 book,
- and today an excellent work (to be published soon) by a team from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, led by Anna Zubek, under the scientific supervision of Tomasz Pyrcz, gives a clear picture, thanks to a complete and sensible approach :
- 1 – there are constant morphological differences between the two species,
- 2 – there are constant differences on the genitalia of the two species,
- 3 - the two species belong to two separate clades on a DNA tree.
so it appears that all the above mentioned authors were right, that the recent changes are unjustified, and that we do have two distinct species.
2 – muddled types
- on butterfliesofamerica all types illustrated as humboldtii, including humboldtii humboldtii, seem to be tringa sensu Attal,
- it has been said that Attal and Crosson du Cormier made a confusion between the type of tringa and the type of humboldtii – but who started this rumour ?
- because there is absolutely no doubt, tringa sensu Attal is the same species as the type of tringa in Geneva as evidenced by the bottom pictures, courtesy of of the Museum of Natural History of the City of Geneva.
so, on this site, when we say tringa or humboldtii, we mean sensu Attal, as it should be.
