Sphaerodactylus oliveri male Escambray © Raimundo Lopez-Silvero
I have done some important updates to the website in the last couple of weeks. Firstly I have added quite a few additional reptile pictures here mainly as a result of some great contributions by Raimundo Lopez-Silvero and the expertise of Javier Torres Lopez for identifications. My thanks to them for their help. If readers have good quality photos, especially of species not yet featured, then I would be very pleased to use them here.
Tropidophis maculatus © Raimundo Lopez-Silvero
I am also adding quite a lot more photos of Odonata which you can see by going to Species > Other Wildlife > Odonata or clicking here. I still have lots more to add which I will do over the next couple of months, and I'm grateful to Juerg Carl Demarmels for his help in identification. And once again if you have pictures of species not yet shown, or better ones than are here already, then I would be pleased to use them here.
Wandering Glider Pantala flavescens male 29 Nov 2018 Guardalavaca © Tim Norriss
The number of species of butterflies that have been seen on Cuba has taken a sudden leap to 201 species, up from 196. The addition of five almost overnight is the result of some great research just published by Rayner Núñez and his colleagues into the Calisto group on the island using DNA barcoding amongst other criteria. The paper, published in Invertebrate Systematics, gives details of the five new species which are Calisto disjunctus, C. gundlachi, C. lastrai, C. sharkeyae and C. siguanensis though whether it is worth $40 just to read one research paper that has already been funded entirely by others including out of the public purse ie you and me is up to you to decide. The paper also contains some fascinating information on when and how the group evolved from its origins 12.15 million years ago to the present day and how those changes have been affected by the rise and fall in sea levels in the intervening period. So from what was just 20 years ago, thought to be just one or two species with a handful of subspecies, it has now been shown that there are sixteen full species on Cuba with undoubtedly more to be discovered.
Calisto lastrai 11 Dec 2018 Moa © Tim Norriss
There has also been another important piece of research just published by PNAS entitled Genomes of skipper butterflies reveal extensive convergence of wing patterns which you can read here. For centuries man has used just the observable characteristics (phenotypes) to infer evolution and therefore to classify species and groups of species. It was always assumed that species with the same or similar phenotypes would be closely related but this research shows that species that are only distantly related display convergence in wing patterns that fooled researchers for decades. This paper takes a sample of the skipper Sub-Family Eudaminae and examines using genome analysis whether that was correct. I thoroughly recommend that you read the full paper which you can do for free.
In a nutshell this has resulted in a reclassification of the Eudaminae and so several species that were previously thought to be closely related have now been placed in different genera, and vice versa. I have now updated the Cuba species list and you can download it here.
I am grateful also to Yosiel Álvarez for bringing another paper to my attention. Wahlberg et al (2009) Proc. R. Soc. B (2009) 276, 4295–4302 Nymphalid butterflies diversify following near demise at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary revised the taxonomy of the Nymphalidae and so that is now taken account of in the revised checklist above. It is freely available on the internet just as all research should be rather than hidden behind paywalls, the model for which was dreamt up by that well-known philanthropist Robert Maxwell who fraudulently misappropriated hundreds of millions of pounds from the Mirror Group pension fund. His family are still in the news today I see!
In a nutshell this has resulted in a reclassification of the Eudaminae and so several species that were previously thought to be closely related have now been placed in different genera, and vice versa. I have now updated the Cuba species list and you can download it here.
I am grateful also to Yosiel Álvarez for bringing another paper to my attention. Wahlberg et al (2009) Proc. R. Soc. B (2009) 276, 4295–4302 Nymphalid butterflies diversify following near demise at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary revised the taxonomy of the Nymphalidae and so that is now taken account of in the revised checklist above. It is freely available on the internet just as all research should be rather than hidden behind paywalls, the model for which was dreamt up by that well-known philanthropist Robert Maxwell who fraudulently misappropriated hundreds of millions of pounds from the Mirror Group pension fund. His family are still in the news today I see!
Telegonus habana Frosty Flasher male 27 Mar 2015 Sierra Maestra © Tim Norriss. One of several species that have now been placed in a different genus as a result of this latest research.
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