Newsletter No. 7

31 December 2008
 
Dear Butterfly Net
 
2008 has been a very exciting year for SABCA, I hope you've all enjoyed being part of it too.

Upcoming event

SABCA Expo, Kirstenbosch Old Mutual Summer Sunset Concert Season, Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, 25 January 2009
On 25 January, SABCA together with SARCA (reptile atlas project) will have an exhibition linked to the Kirstenbosch concert for that evening, "Prime Circle". This is part of SANBI's exciting new venture of featuring conservation projects during the summer concert season at the gardens. The band will say a few words on the project and encourage the audience to visit the stand. The stand will showcase SABCA and SARCA, and the Kids Zone will have various activities for children linked to the two projects. For those of you living in the area, pack your picnic baskets and come and enjoy the evening!

Data Capture

 
nhm
  
 
therm_dec08

I'm pleased to report that data capture has now begun at the Natural History Museum in London. Henry Ferguson-Gow, a masters graduate in the Biological Sciences, has taken the job on since mid-November and will be continuing for another few months. Henry studied Zoology and took a particular interest in Entomology, which led to him using the African nymphalid butterfly Bicyclus anynana as a study organism for his final research project at the University of Sheffield. Blanca Huertas, curator of Lepidoptera in the Entomology Department at the museum, has been responsible for training and monitoring Henry, for which SABCA is most appreciative! Alan Heath (who you'll read about a little further down), has also popped by the museum, now that he's back in the UK, to assist Henry in sorting out ID and other queries. As we do not have enough funds to digitise the entire South African collection of 80 000 records at the museum, Henry is focussing on the Lycaenids, having started with the most conservation-priority groups within this butterfly family. To date 6 500 records have been digitised.

Other data capture and processing is progressing well. We have uploaded data from Andrew Morton's collection as well as part of Alan Heath's collection. Some more Transvaal Museum data has also been uploaded. The total number of records uploaded into the SABCA database stands at 25 763.

andrew  

Andrew Morton: I have been interested in things that crawl from about the time I started crawling. Over the last few years I have become quite fascinated by butterfly distribution and extremely concerned about their conservation. I hope to become more involved in these areas. My wife and I started a guesthouse 6 years ago which affords me sufficient time to persue my butterfly passion.

  alan

Alan Heath: Alan (75) was born in London, UK, and began his interest in butterflies at the age of nine. He later spent 14 years in Zambia where he collected widely. Encouraged by the late Elliot Pinhey, then Keeper of Entomology at the National Museum, Rhodesia, Alan wrote his first scientific paper in 1977 and embarked on a book of Zambian butterflies which was published in 2002. During this time he has authored over twenty butterfly publications. Alan's Zambian butterfly collection was donated to the African Butterfly Research Institute in Nairobi in 1996.
 
Following a move to Cape Town in 1984, Alan focused on the evolutionary aspects of lycaenid butterflies, their morphology, taxonomy and ant-associated life histories. He is also studying the morphology of different lycaenid groups world-wide to compare with phylogenies inferred from molecular sequence data (DNA) at the MCZ laboratory at Harvard University where he is a visiting researcher. Further research into South African lycaenid life histories is ongoing, including associations with ants and with Hemiptera. Alan now divides his time between South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Virtual Museum

The virtual museum has now close to 4500 records, received from 152 contributors! Thank you to those of you who have made so many contributions!
 
SABCA would like to thank the following people for their contributions during the past three months - some of the most recent submissions have not been processed yet and thus have not been considered here (see previous newsletters for previous contributions):

As determined by our ID expert panel, here follow a selection of good records ... :


This has been missing from Bulwer Mountain for some time now.
Drakensberg brown
Pseudonympha poetula
Clulow D.
Expert panel members are very envious of this record!
Deceptive diadem
Hypolimnas deceptor deceptor
Willis C.K.
Hard to find.
Eyed pansy
Junonia orithya madagascariensis
Webb P.

Good to know they also fly on the western side of the mountain range.
Constantine's swallowtail
Papilio constantinus constantinus
Willis C.K.
Rare in SA.
Mottled-green nymph
Euryphura achlys
Heyns R.
Form alcippus, rare in SA.
African monarch, Plain tiger
Danaus chrysippus orientis
Heyns R.

... interesting observations that have been received recently ... :


Female ovipositing.
Spotted pentila
Pentila tropicalis tropicalis
Sharp I. C. & Sharp A.
In flight.
African monarch, Plain tiger
Danaus chrysippus orientis
Heyns R.
Mating.
Black-bordered babul blue
Azanus moriqua
Sharp I.C. & Sharp A.

... and here are some records received of butterflies which are difficult to photograph:


White-banded swift
Pelopidas thrax inconspicua
Aiston G.
This is the rare form colvillei - seldom seen in SA
Trimen's false acraea
Pseudacraea boisduvalii trimenii
Cowie D.
Pirate
Catacroptera cloanthe cloanthe
Visser F.G.

Golden Piper
Eurytela dryope angulata
Heyns R.
Warrior silver-spotted copper
Argyraspodes argyraspis
Rautenbach C.
Spotted sailor
Neptis saclava marpessa
Sharp I. C. & Sharp A.

The Virtual Museum competition has closed!

Thanks to all of you who submitted so many photographic records. We are busy processing and identifying the records as fast as possible. Winners will be announced as soon as possible (during January or February 2009), as well as in the March newsletter.
 
A BIG thank you to the following sponsors for kindly sponsoring the prizes:
 
Africa Geographic, Struik Publishers, Lepidopterists' Society of Africa and JAH & Associates.
 
Please keep on submitting your photos, as SABCA aims to launch another competition soon! Click on the Public participation link to obtain easy-to-follow instructions on how photos should be submitted.

Butterfly garden opened at St Andrew's School for Girls, Johannesburg

By Emma Harrage - St Andrew's Junior School celebrated the opening of their butterfly garden on the 16th October. The culmination of a year's planning and work, this garden is a special place for girls and staff. Here they can study the ecological garden, have lessons or enjoy the serenity and peacefulness of nature.
 
In 2007 Ms Emma Harrage, the Natural Sciences teacher at St Andrew's Junior School, proposed the development of a nature or wildlife garden to assist with environmental and science education teaching. As St Andrew's is also an Eco-School the establishment of a garden like this would add to the ecological projects already undertaken at the school as well as giving the girls and the staff the opportunity to study nature in a practical way. The butterfly garden project started in September 2007, with lots of discussion about the location, plants, and hard landscaping.
 
After raising funds from a swim-a-thon in February 2008, the landscaping of the garden commenced in early May, after an enormous amount of research and leg-work into locating the right plants needed to attract the many butterflies found in Gauteng. The job of clearing out the site was very testing, requiring the removal of all the bamboo which had previously grown freely there, and the tarmac road. The site we chose is tucked away from regular foot traffic, in a quiet corner of the school which was not a previously utilised space. The site is north facing and has a very steep slope leading to a flatter area. Planting was centred around a seating area for the girls and in the long term we aimed to provide a fairly shaded area for outside ecological work.
 
Plants were sourced from many locations around Gauteng, and from as far as Pietermaritzberg. All plants were chosen because they either host common butterflies or are food sources and will attract more butterflies to visit the garden. A stream has been put in to run down the slope, and overflow into a boggy area which will also help keep the butterflies happy. Nectar plants have also been planted to attract birds. All the hard landscaping materials – the fencing poles, the wooden seats, the stones for the stream and the steeping stones have been reclaimed and recycled. The garden has been designed to be as environmentally friendly as possible using a drip irrigation system. All the plants are indigenous and weeds will be allowed to grow freely!
 
The garden is still a work in progress with next years objectives to remove all the non-indigenous grass which keeps popping up, and also to install solar panels to run the pump for the stream and irrigation system. Many more grasses which also help to attract butterflies will be put in, as will an indigenous lawn.
 
The garden is one of only two butterfly gardens in Gauteng. The idea behind it is to raise awareness of the need to start returning to indigenous gardening and try to preserve the biodiversity of invertebrates, small reptiles and amphibians whose numbers are declining in Gauteng.

   

Thank you all for your interest and participation! Best wishes for 2009!
 
Silvia Mecenero
SABCA Project Coordinator
Email:
Tel: 021 650 3426