Newsletter No. 13

June 2010
 
Dear Butterfly Net

Upcoming events

LepSoc conference and public day, Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden, Johannesburg, 24-26 September 2010
LepSoc is hosting a public day during their annual conference and AGM. For more information, please click here.

Past events

1st Butterfly Census Weekend, 24-25 April 2010
South Africa's first Butterfly Census Weekend took place the end of April. To find out more about it, as well as provincial and overall results, please go here: http://sabca.adu.org.za/bcw_apr2010.php
 

Virtual Museum

The virtual museum has received about 13 400 photographic records. Thank you to those of you who have made so many contributions.
 
Please note: The procedure for submitting photos to the virtual museum has changed. Emails are no longer accepted - photos are to be submitted online. Before your photos are made live on the virtual museum they need to be confirmed by us, thus there will be a slight delay of one to a few days before you will be able to view your photos on the site after you've submitted them online. To find instructions on the new online submission procedure, please go here: http://sabca.adu.org.za/public.php
 
We have almost finalised winners for the competition which closed the end of March. As soon as we have all winners sorted we will distribute the results. Thank you for your patience.

SABCA would like to thank the following citizen scientists for their contributions during the past three months (see previous newsletters for previous contributions):

Here follows a small selection of interesting records or great photos received recently, as determined by our ID expert panel:


Good record, good shot.
W van der Merwe
Azanus natalensis
Natal babul blue
Nice butterfly in flight shot.
C Reynolds
Danaus chrysippus orientis
African monarch
Nice find.
M Purves
Pseudacraea lucretia tarquinea
False chief

Good record.
D Maphisa
Telchinia anacreon
Orange acraea
Nice female shot, not easy.
A Kruger
Eronia leda
Autumn leaf vagrant
Really good record - perhaps a first..
A Kruger
Cymothoe alcimeda trimeni
Battling glider

Very nice photo.
KP Braun
Acraea violarum
Speckled red acraea
Very nice photo, not easy.
J Morley
Hypolimnas misippus
Common diadem
White colour morph.
J Morley
Telchinia encedon encedon
White-barred acraea

Data Capture

The total number of records uploaded into the SABCA database now stands at about 400 000 (this includes virtual museum and field survey records). The latest batch of records uploaded come from various institutions (Agricultural Research Council, National History Museum in London, Mpumalanga Parks and the African Butterfly Research Institute in Kenya), some private collections (JP Niehaus, E Pringle, A Heath, D Morton, G Henning, D Kroon, A Curle, P Sharland, W Steele, T Waters, K Cockburn, J Greyling, D McDermott, S Joubert, J Ball, G Fraser-Grant, A&B Plowes, A Coetzer, J Dobson, S Woodhall, T Gilbert, O Garvie, H Staude, P Roos, R Alcock, J&C Terblanche, C Koch), SABCA field surveys, literature records and the 1st Butterfly Census Weekend. Thank you to all institutions and private collectors who have contributed data to SABCA!
 
We have now completed processing and uploading data into the SABCA database. Questionable records are being checked and any queries sent to data owners. The SABCA conservation assessment authors (members of LepSoc) have been very busy with their species accounts and have made great progress towards meeting the deadline for the end of October. Thank you to all authors for putting in so much of their spare time in doing the accounts!
 
Monique Boucher, SABCA's latest assistant, has been a huge help these last few months in getting databases ready for upload for our data deadline of the end of June. She will be with us for the next few months to work through all the queries and questionable records, as well as to ensure that SABCA keeps going during the early weeks of my maternity leave.
 

Other News

Field survey news
The 6th SABCA Field Survey Newsletter was distributed in June, please click here to access it.

New butterfly Red Data Book
The South African Red Data Book: Butterflies (2009), edited by Henning, Terblanche and Ball (SANBI Biodiversity Series 13, South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria), was recently made available through SANBI's bookshop at the Pretoria National Botanical Gardens. Of the 63 taxa that are red listed, three are Extinct, 12 are Critically Endangered, 16 are Endangered and 32 are Vulnerable.

Please remember to visit the SABCA website for previous newsletters and extra information:
http://sabca.adu.org.za
 
Thank you all for your interest and participation!
 
Silvia Mecenero
SABCA Project Coordinator
Email: