'' old time field collectors '

[foxxdoc]

Lep traps mentions Edwardo Welling in another post. I received many specimens ( living and dead ) from him in the 60"s and early 70'.

My main source of specimens was The Butterfly Company in N.Y. He always had worldwide specimens. My question today is where did he get his specimens ?  Who were the in-country wholesalers back then.

Tom

[leptraps]

Others on here may know more about Eduardo (Edward) Welling. He was from Eucld, Ohio, a suburb East of Cleveland. There were several of us who collected Lepidoptera. Walter Strekal, George Harris's, and yours truly. We call attended different High Schools, but we all attended the same Church.

Edurado Welling was several years older than the rest of us. He went off to college, became a medical doctor. He practiced medicine in the Cleveland, Ohio area. He was not to be heard from again until he got in trouble bringing specimens from Mexico into the USA with out the proper documents. He became a wanted man, fled to Mexico and remained thete until his death().

I heard various stories about him. Someone or somebody became a mule for him (Whoever it was lived in Shaker Heights,Ohio.) and was selling specimens for him. Many years ago 1980's), his named surface with Chuck Ianni. It was latter proven completely false. That's where my knowledge of Edward Welling ends.

If you know more or my information is incorrect, please let me know.

George Harris died in 1972
Walter Strekal died in 2005

I am still alive and kicking.

That is all I know.

[exoticimports]

IIRC Butterfly Company was in Far Rockaway, NY. At the end, the assets (specimens) were sold in bulk. Label data was written on the envelope (usually at the source) and often illegible due to the old-style longhand script used in Latin America.

There was also Jerry Schloemer (sp?) out of Illinois, and David Boughton who lived on both sides of the NY/ PA line. David's collection was largely wiped out during a flood, and he never quite recovered; he stayed in the retail insect business for a few more years, but never at the level he had been in the earlier years.

I don't know if these guys followed USFWS import regulations or not. Ianni apparently did, as much as reasonably possible.

Moving into the late 1990s and early 2000s, there were several large importers (whom most know). While licensed, I do know that many import shipments were shady (let me be more clear: in general compliance with US import laws, but exported from origin illegally.) The only ones I knew who tried to do everything 100% by the book was Lewellyn brothers.

Chuck

[leptraps]

There a name I have not heard in many a year, the Lewellyn brothers.

Are they still alive?

[exoticimports]

Rod passed on. Greg, last I heard, was a minister. Greg was a very talented insect illustrator, I wonder if he still does it.

[lamprima2]

Lewallen, not Lewellyn

[leptraps]

Where were they from? What was the name of their business?

I remember the names!!

[58chevy]

I think the company was called Insects International, based in Texas. Rod & Greg bought the business from its founder, Terry Taylor. When Greg closed the business down a few years after Rod's death, Bioquip bought their inventory of specimens, which are for sale on the Bioquip website as far as I know.

[jshuey]

Mar 4, 2020 10:28:59 GMT -8 leptraps said:

Edurado Welling was several years older than the rest of us. He went off to college, became a medical doctor. He practiced medicine in the Cleveland, Ohio area. He was not to be heard from again until he got in trouble bringing specimens from Mexico into the USA with out the proper documents. He became a wanted man, fled to Mexico and remained thete until his death().

Hi Leroy,

I think that you're confusing Edwardo Welling and John Kemmner. Edwardo worked before anyone even thought about import and export laws. He had a number of local collectors working for him in the Yucatan, and a client list that spanned the western hemisphere (I saw hundreds of his bugs at the University in Curitiba, Brasil - I just saw a bunch at the AMNH, and the Carnegie is loaded with them). He died in 1995 after living in Merida for ~50 years. I never heard of him being in any trouble.

John Kemmner was a Texan who collected commercially in Mexico in the late 70's though the 80's. He sold to museums (like the Smithsonian) and lots of private collectors. When the ### hit the fan in the 80's with those guys poaching from National Parks and trading endangered species, FWS stumbled onto all the correspondence with some of his customers. Suddenly he was in trouble for Lacy Act violations (no permits were ever involved with his collecting). John then moved to Mexico to avoid all the crap headed his way with his wife and still lives there today (In Oaxaca I think).

Both these guys collected amazing bugs. Welling was among the first to collect in much of southern Mexico and adjacent Belize and Guatemala. And he could access great habitats at that time - right off the road. (now most roadside habitats are trashed in the Yucatan and in Belize). Kemmner liked high altitudes in central and southern Mexico, and just hammered bugs from sites that no-one had ever bothered to carry a net into. Only recently have some of his new species been re-discovered.

I'm lucky in that while both these guys were active before I was really into the tropics, that I have a few bugs from each including a few amazing species. Mostly Hesperiidae of course!

John

[leptraps]

You may be correct. My age is catching up with me. I forgot about Kemmner.

However, I remember Whelling getting into trouble with the feds for bring specimens across the border illegally. That was over 45 years ago. And then again, I could have it all wrong.

Kemmner was a real piece of work. I remember meeting him in Florida in the late 1970's. There was an Insurance agent from Indiana who lived the Boynington Beach and purchase lots of specimens from Kemmner.

When I get home latter tomorrow, I look in my file.

[bandrow]

Leroy,

Did you ever know a gentleman from the Cleveland area named Newell Schwamberger? Hopefully I have the spelling at least close! I met him at Lake Hope State Park in Vinton County, Ohio when I was 13 (1973). He was camping with his wife at the site next to my family, noticed me with a net and struck up a conversation. He taught me how to 'paper' leps and gave me a bunch of tips on collecting - even showed me where to collect my first Baltimore butterfly. I lost track of him after that trip - he was probably in his late 60's/early 70's in 1973. Basically, I knew him for about 48 hours, but he left a lasting impression - wish I had gotten to know more about him...

Cheers!
Bandrow

[bugboys3]

Mar 5, 2020 9:02:14 GMT -8 exoticimports said:

Rod passed on. Greg, last I heard, was a minister. Greg was a very talented insect illustrator, I wonder if he still does it.

Greg is currently an Art professor at Baylor University in Texas. I think he still does some collecting when he has time.

[leptraps]

I have heard the name, Newell Schwamberger, I did not know him.

[bandrow]

Hi Leroy,

Thanks - he must have been one of the many collectors that do this on their own without much interaction with others. Nobody in Ohio seems to have been familiar with him...

Cheers!
Bob

[Adam Cotton]

I just checked the 1978 Lep. Soc. Membership List, and he is listed there:

"Schwamberger, Newell [address not copied here] Monclova" [Ohio]

He seems to have disappeared from the Lep. Soc. membership in the mid 1990s.

Adam.