Post by scumbuster on Jul 18, 2021 15:30:04 GMT -5
Colombia home to 20% of world’s butterfly species, reveals report
The yellow butterflies that swarm the imaginary and magical landscapes of Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude are just one species of 3,642 that inhabit the very real Colombia, and country home to 20% of all butterfly species on the planet. The findings are the result of years of research by scientists, collectors, students and amateurs documenting species across topographically challenging terrain. The list of 3,642 species and 2,085 subspecies was compiled by Dr Blanca Huertas, Senior Curator at the Natural History Museum in London.
“More than 200 species of the butterflies in the checklist are unique to Colombia and not found anywhere else in the world, so if we lose them there is no back-up population and they are gone forever,” states Huertas. According to coauthors Kim Garwood, Juan Guillermo Jaramillo and Indiana Cristóbal Ríos-Malaver, to put Colombia’s rich biodiversity into perspective, “the 3,642 butterfly species found in country can be compared to 496 butterfly species found in Europe, or 4,000 butterfly species found in the entire African continent.”
The checklist aims to inspire neighboring countries – Ecuador and Peru – to publish lists of their own butterfly species. The checklist and online database is classified by family (taxonomy), scientific name, subspecies, range, and year the specimen was first recorded. Among the ranges of butterfly populations are Pacific rainforest, neotropical lowlands, deserts, Amazon, Eastern grasslands and Andes.
“This great diversity and complexity of habitats and geological histories makes Colombia one of the world’s most fascinating locations for research on the evolutionary ecology of tropical faunas, and its butterflies are an ideal subject for such studies,” writes Keith Willmott, Director of the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity at the Florida Museum. “Despite a long history of exploration, the inaccessibility of many parts of the country, sheer diversity of its butterfly fauna and rarity of many of its species have ensured that there remains an extraordinary amount to learn about Colombia’s butterfly fauna,” he said.
thecitypaperbogota.com/news/colombia-home-to-20-of-worlds-butterfly-species-reveals-report/27694
The yellow butterflies that swarm the imaginary and magical landscapes of Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude are just one species of 3,642 that inhabit the very real Colombia, and country home to 20% of all butterfly species on the planet. The findings are the result of years of research by scientists, collectors, students and amateurs documenting species across topographically challenging terrain. The list of 3,642 species and 2,085 subspecies was compiled by Dr Blanca Huertas, Senior Curator at the Natural History Museum in London.
“More than 200 species of the butterflies in the checklist are unique to Colombia and not found anywhere else in the world, so if we lose them there is no back-up population and they are gone forever,” states Huertas. According to coauthors Kim Garwood, Juan Guillermo Jaramillo and Indiana Cristóbal Ríos-Malaver, to put Colombia’s rich biodiversity into perspective, “the 3,642 butterfly species found in country can be compared to 496 butterfly species found in Europe, or 4,000 butterfly species found in the entire African continent.”
The checklist aims to inspire neighboring countries – Ecuador and Peru – to publish lists of their own butterfly species. The checklist and online database is classified by family (taxonomy), scientific name, subspecies, range, and year the specimen was first recorded. Among the ranges of butterfly populations are Pacific rainforest, neotropical lowlands, deserts, Amazon, Eastern grasslands and Andes.
“This great diversity and complexity of habitats and geological histories makes Colombia one of the world’s most fascinating locations for research on the evolutionary ecology of tropical faunas, and its butterflies are an ideal subject for such studies,” writes Keith Willmott, Director of the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity at the Florida Museum. “Despite a long history of exploration, the inaccessibility of many parts of the country, sheer diversity of its butterfly fauna and rarity of many of its species have ensured that there remains an extraordinary amount to learn about Colombia’s butterfly fauna,” he said.
thecitypaperbogota.com/news/colombia-home-to-20-of-worlds-butterfly-species-reveals-report/27694