Fake data/subspecies

[Adam Cotton]

I decided I could no longer sit by and watch without making some comments here.

For the past few weeks Timo & Berndt Liese have been offering specimens from John Kamps' very fine collection for sale in the Insectnet classifieds. While many specimens are genuine with correct data, there are a number of specimens offered with fake data, and often non-existant subspecies names.

John was duped into buying specimens of so called "new subspecies" at high prices by a totally unscrupulous Japanese who used to advertise in Insectnet classifieds a few years ago. What he did was select slightly different specimens of butterflies from Japanese dealers (I was personally told by one dealer how every so often he would sort through his material and select a few to buy) then change the data to claim they came from a place that the butterfly really doesn't occur at all and invent a subspecies name for them. There was a thread in the old Insectnet forum about this some years ago, which some of you may remember. I told John then to ask M*ts*ta to send copies of the "new subspecies" original descriptions, but he replied that they were all in Japanese, so no point to send them. As you will probably know, Japanese always at least have an English summary included in an original description of a new subspecies.

Now I see some of these fakes are being advertised for sale. While I have no personal complaint with Timo & Berndt Liese (they won't know what is correct and what is fake) or John Kamps I would like to warn potential buyers that they should be careful. I actually sent an e-mail to the Liese's telling them about the problem and warning them that it could give them a bad reputation long term.

Some examples of fakes offered recently are:

Papilio paris(tamilana) aurora A1 M Middle Andaman is.
P. dialis lushanai M A1+ (Chittalong/Myanmar)
Atrop. polla ihokasakulensis A1
Chilasa clytia mitrai A1 M Sir Henry Lawrence
Graphium codrus lawlencei
P. forbesi from Nicobar

Here are some fake subspecies names that John Kamps sent me some time ago, although I haven't seen these offered yet:

Losaria coon mergui (Great Western Torres Is.)
Losaria neptunus egeria (Great Western Torres Is.)
Atrop. sycorax weiliangi (Great Western Torres Is.)
Atrop. nox trudenari (Great Western Torres Is.)
Byasa aidoneus lauretianus (Great Western Torres Is.)
Byasa polla nerchasis (Great Western Torres Is.)
Atrop. priapus soneharai (Great Western Torres Is.)
Meandrusa lachinus masakiae (Kunthi Kyun Is.)
Papilio polyctor iris (Bentinck Is.)
P. polyctor similianus (Zadetyki Is)
P. mahadeva sissania (Great Western Torres Is.)
Byasa adamsoni arayae (Ko Payang, S. Thailand)
Chilasa paradoxa nynims (South Andaman Is.)
C. paradoxa nicobariensis (Car Nicobar Is.)
C. paradoxa neoaenigmai (Kanmau Kyun Is., Mergui Archipelago)

Adam.

[wollastoni]

Thanks
Important to stop this indeed.

I am sure the Liese will do it.

Let us know.

[Adam Cotton]

We'll see. I wrote to Liese on 29 March, and still haven't got a reply from him. I wrote another e-mail today, but I'm not confident of a reply.

Adam.

[maurizio]

When I read first offers by Timo & Berndt Liese, I thought they were starting selling the collection of Thomas Frankenbach, but reading the subspecies and their data, I suspected a ....... "problem"!!

[Adam Cotton]

If anyone was sellling the Frankenbach collection I would expect it to be Oliver Schaeffler rather than Liese. Hopefully the Frankenbach collection is being well cared for, rather than just left abandoned.

Some of the more recent ads from Liese have included photos that clearly come from John Kamps' collection. John actually posted an advert on Insectnet in early March offering specimens for sale, but I only realised that the Liese offerings must be from John Kamps' collection when they started advertising dodgy names and locations, as their first ads didn't include photos. One of the ads I saw yesterday clearly had a Kamps collection label in the photo.

Adam.

[wollastoni]

Did John stop collecting ?

[Adam Cotton]

I get the impression he wants to concentrate on his coin collection.

When I saw his advert I wrote to ask if he was selling off spares or his collection, and he replied that he is "selling entire collection. Papilionidae, parnassius, charaxes, polyura, cethosia, saturnidae.
But, I have another hobby....collecting rare gold coins(Ancient Greece, Rome, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, up to 1918. Just like in insects, all my coins are FDC(UNC)"

Adam.

[bugman60]

Hi Adam
Do you have contact details for John Kamps, - email. You can message me private.
Len

[jonathan]

Thanks Adam for highlighting this issue. I believe that this practise is more widespread than we think.