Southern African Butterfly Conservation Assessment

Newsletter No. 4

31 March 2008
 
Dear Butterfly Net:
 
It's the new year, and it seems that many of you have caught the butterfly-watching bug! SABCA has now being going for one year, and three years remain...
 

Data Capture

The last few months has seen a change-over in data technicians at UCT, and thus data processing slowed down a little. The new full-time data technicians have been appointed, Laurenda van Breda and Lungelo Ndaba. During the change-over process, ad-hoc data technicians were appointed so that work wouldn't come to a complete halt. Mariette Wheeler helped out for a few days, and Hermien Fourie helped out for a month. Hermien's very hard work ensured that alot of the data processing continued when no data technicans were available.

The number of records uploaded into the SABCA database now stands at 11 263, having recently uploaded the Edge Collection. The Transvaal and South African Museum databases are being geo-referenced, checked and formatted, and these should be ready for upload within the next month.
 
Jonathan Ball and John White's collections are still being digitised - the end is in sight. If there are any other lepidopterists out there who require assistance with the digitisation of your collections, please urgently contact me so that we can organise assistance for you as soon as possible. SABCA's deadline is to digitise and upload 75% of the existing data (about 350 000 records) by December this year! Alot still needs to be done.

Digitisation of museum records is proceeding well! Most of the records at the Natal, East London and Durban Natural Science Museums have been digitised. All records at the Transvaal Museum have now been digitised, thanks to the hard work of Evelyn Maleka and Lizzy Masingita in January and February, who helped to digitise the last 30 000 records there. Recently, Mary Kirk-Spriggs was appointed as ad-hoc data capturer at the Albany Museum - she will help digitise the 9 000 records that are housed there (Tanya Pretorius also worked there for a few days in January).
 

 

We are still urgently looking for financial sponsors for the digitisation of the South African butterfly collection at the Natural History Museum in London (UK). This is a very large and important collection (80 000 records = about 20% of all records for SABCA) and this data would contribute greatly towards SABCA reaching its objectives. Please could any potential sponsors contact me further details.

Virtual Museum

Since December, photos for the Virtual Museum have been flooding in. Thank you to those of you who have made so many contributions! To date, since the virtual museum was launched last year, SABCA has received an incredible 1819 photographic submissions from 79 different people!! THANK YOU!
 
SABCA would like to thank the following people for the most recent exciting contributions, continuing from record number 606 (see previous newsletters for previous contributions):

• IC Sharp & A Sharp: 359 records
• CK Willis: 189 records
• G Diedericks: 139 records
• P Webb: 116 records
• FG Visser: 82 records
• S Adam, D Maphisa: 24 records
• D Cowie, JA Heymans: 23 records
• MC de Wijn, AE Luyt: 21 records
• A Hankey: 19 records
• A Geyer: 16 records
• KC Abram: 13 records
• G Nichols: 12 records
• B Erni & A Altwegg: 10 records
• SW Adams: 9 records
• AM Archer: 8 records
• H de Klerk: 7 records
• AD Manson, JC McMaster, IM Rijsdijk: 5 records
• D Cooke & I Cooke, J Crocombe, K Drummond-Hay, A Fourie: 4 records
• B de Boer: 3 records
• J Johnson, R Jones, D Knight, W Paisley, B, Potgieter, K Webster, KA Williams: 2 records each
• G Aiston, A Baird, J Davids, LRN D'Aubrey, D de Swardt, N Helme, J Freislich, R Heyns, S Johnson & J Johnson, ER le Roux, D Morton, EGH Oliver, ND Perrins, M Pieterse, S Pringle, R Ranft, C Willis & I Oliver, A Tiran, P Win, L Wolfaardt: 1 record each

(Please note: due to the recent change-over in data technicians, the processing of your submissions is taking longer than usual and we apologise for the delay. We hope to catch up with the back-log in the next few weeks.)
 
Some interesting submissions have been received:

	Quite a few records have been submitted by a number of you of the White-Barred Emporor (Charaxes brutus natalensis), taken from in and around the Cape Peninsula, and as far as Stellenbosch. These sightings are most interesting, as this species should only occur in KwaZulu-Natal. It seems that in recent years, due to landscapers using trees originating from KZN which carry the butterfly larvae and/or pupae, this butterfly has become introduced into the Western Cape. From your observations there are indications that it is breeding and thus is possibly becoming established, and that it is also spreading.
The Scarce Ranger (Kedestes nerva nerva) is a very rare skipper and observations have been made in Gauteng, in an area which is to be developed. Hopefully these records will come useful in protecting the affected pocket of natural land.
	A large range extension to the North into Limpopo province has been observed for the Zulu Shadefly (Coenyra hebe).
An observation of the very rare Roodepoort Copper (Aloeides dentatis) is good news, reaffirming that the colony still exists.

Submitted photographic records are placed online, where a panel of expert lepidopterists identify the records. Here is another panel member who spends alot of his spare time to ID your photos:

Andre Coetzer

I have been studying butterflies for almost 16 years and have a keen interest in their habits, distribution and early stages. I spend a lot of time touring the country with my father and enjoy crawling around on my hands and knees trying to photograph these creatures. I'm also very interested in many other groups of animals, particularly reptiles. In my spare time I study engineering at Tukkies.

Remember the competition for the Virtual Museum! There are three categories:

1. Person who submits the most geographically diverse number of butterfly records
   (i.e. records from as many different localities as possible).
2. Person who submits the most species rich number of butterfly records
   (i.e. records of as many different species of butterflies as possible).
3. Person who submits the most biologically interesting/unusual butterfly record.

A BIG thank you to the following sponsors for kindly sponsoring the prizes:

	Struik Publishers
	JAH & Associates, Environmental Consultancy

• For more details on the competition, please click here.
• Please click on the Public participation link to obtain easy-to-follow instructions on how photos should be submitted.
• To see what the Virtual Museum is all about, please click on the Virtual Museum link.

Field Surveys

Field work has being going well in most provinces around the country, although work has been hampered by rainy weather. More on this in the next Field Trip Newsletter in a few months time. Thank you to the SABCA Provincial Leaders for coordinating the field work and to the LepSoc members for conducting the surveys. And thank you to all institutions which support the project and have given permits and licenses for the field work to be done.
 
Please help LepSoc in surveying towns and cities, by taking photos of butterflies in your gardens and parks and submitting these to the virtual museum!
 
Thank you all for your interest and participation!
 
Silvia Mecenero
SABCA Project Coordinator
Email:
Tel: 021 650 3426