Post by papilio28570 on Aug 20, 2011 18:42:55 GMT -8
Why are there so few Swallowtails (Papilio) in Europe? That is a huge land mass. Did they get wiped out by over a 1000 years of human civilization and wars? Were the forests stripped away in earlier times?
There is also Iphiclides feisthamelii, while Papilio saharae doesn't occur in Europe. As far as I now it flies only in North Africa.
It is the same with many other animals in Europe, in relation to North America the list of species often is short. I don't think the main reason for this are over 1000 years of civilization. I have never heard that there have been that more Papilio species in Europe some hundred years ago, and then there was living only a fraction of people here. The German Wikipedia says, that the actual glacial period is the reason. Due to climatic up- and downturns many animals and plants where going to extinction. This effect was much heavier in Europe and Africa as in North America and Eastern Asia.
Look for example at the species groups that are the most diverse in Europe and USA ( which I guess you were comparing us to), you have many Catocala and Papilio, we have got them too but not really many species. On the other hand we have 56 Erebia compared to only 14 in USA ;D. Another example is Parnassius apollo which is "threatened" now but did exist in pretty much every country at many places.
A further reason that I think adds too is that our climate regions are not that diverse than in the USA. In Europe we have mainland Europe and mediterranian region and boreal region. In US you have these too and furthermore much higher mountains, tropical regions and deserts, etc.
I am ok with the situation as it is as I don't really like Papilio and I only have a small drawer in a corner that I barely ever open, but I would sure enjoy getting more Catocala to my bait traps
Last Edit: Aug 21, 2011 0:09:57 GMT -8 by nomihoudai
try living in England Claude, we have been cut off from Europe so long there is bugger all here, 59 resident species, half of those so rare now that you have to travel miles to see them and 1 papilio, machaon, so rare that it only lives in small pockets on the Norfolk Broads, when I travel to Europe I think I'm in heaven.
Oh just because I am in mainland Europe does not mean that there is many species here ! Luxembourg is an ecological desert, in 3 years I recorded now 43 species and I doubt getting over 70 species in any case, so I am not too far away from yours. A lot of the species also just occur in one field or place in the very north or very south of the country so I have to drive a lot around. Another thing is that the habitats are so fragmented here... take your google earth and stop displaying country borders, you still can see Luxembourg as it is the place between Belgium, France and Germany where the forest is fragmented.
Getting back to Papilio, Papilio machaon is doing better here now in the last few years, it seems to like the hot springs we had, I see 1 or 2 of them a year in my village, but don't catch them as my permit would not allow for and as I said before I would be much happier getting an Erebia into my net
Being a beetle guy, I wasn't really aware that Europe had so few species of Papilionidae compared to North America, and found that interesting. But depending on the group of insects being studied, the opposite case occurs in other lineages, as was pointed out by Nomihoudai. I collect Cerambycidae primarily, and have always been impressed by the number of species, subspecies and forms of the genus Dorcadion. We have several flightless cerambycid genera in North America - Moneilema in particular - but it consists of roughly a dozen species. Another example is the massive number of species and associated subspecies and forms of Carabus in Europe, compared to a relatively small number of species here.
I would suggest that natural selection and probably continental drift are the reasons for the sporadic number of species of Papilionidae in Europe. Some portions of Europe were isolated in the past, and other times adjoined directly to Africa. So, maybe there were more ancestral species at one time, and maybe those disappeared through geologic time. We probably won't know entirely because the fossil record may not be there. Jeff Prill
Europe and Asia have been for a long time separated by other stuff, East Asia too, yet they have more Papilionidae than us while we have connected longer with America and those. Unless you proove me now that all Papilionidae on eastern hemisphere came to that region with India I won't believe in your hypothesis. I told it once to wingedwished and tell it now here again, if somebody asks you a question on scientific matter learn to judge what time frame is important for the question.
It is like somebody asks you what vaccinations you need for a Europe travel and you reply him Malaria because it was tropical 150 million years ago.
Last Edit: Aug 22, 2011 9:07:01 GMT -8 by nomihoudai
I don't agree. Explain to me why there are more species of Callipogon in South America and one in Northern Asia. It's because of geological isolation. Jeff Prill
Post by nomihoudai on Aug 22, 2011 13:25:24 GMT -8
...because Callipogon is not Papilio, there you go.
Sorry just kidding,... in order to explain that I would have to look at what time genetics indicate a split of the related genera/species and compare the continental drifts which are on top completely different than for Europe which has been for long time simply connected with North America. I guess I will save some time and simply say you are comparing apples with oranges here. There likely was more Papilio in Europe before the glacial time than after, we have the same size than the USA and so much less species but another boreal species group was "exploding" of diversity.
Last Edit: Aug 22, 2011 13:26:25 GMT -8 by nomihoudai
It's not apples and oranges with me. You have to remember that there were periods of warmth during glacial times. Consider flowering plants, and use that as your basis as to when they first probably appeared, then apply that to elimination of species that many butterflies relied upon. There has been recent research published, I don't remember his name, but he was searching for s record of the very first flowering plants, and believes that they go back further than most people believe. Papilionidae are probably originally tropical in origin, and a few moved northwards because the conditions agreed with them. Thus, natural selection. Your theory of glacial times affecting them is absurd, if that were the case, it would have effected other insects, the ones that continue to thrive in Europe are the ones that survived. So, I really don't agree with you entirely. The same could be said throughout the circumpolar region. Jeff Prill
Post by Adam Cotton on Aug 23, 2011 0:46:57 GMT -8
Papilionidae probably originated in the ancient southern hemisphere, various molecular publications seem to suggest. I think the low diversity of Papilionidae in Europe is probably a combination of it being far from the centre of origin of the family, and also the glaciation that occurred several times in the northern hemisphere will have had some effect on the distribution.