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Post by exoticimports on Dec 23, 2021 5:33:38 GMT -8
Someone mentioned family members stumbling upon google searches of loved ones... Thank you all for this. Paul Pfenninger was my grandpa. I happened to be in Key West this past week and hit the Butterfly Conservatory there, which made me google my grandpa, and I found this. I'm glad to hear his memory still lives on. He was one of a kind. No one else in our family continued his work, unfortunately. We still have frames with butterflies and moths on walls in multiple homes within the extended family. I also loved hearing the story of his car rolling over the ravine. Classic. I sent this link to my dad and uncle as well, his 2 sons. Thanks again! Jeff Pfenninger Thanks for stopping in and giving us an update! It's good to hear that your family still appreciates your grandfather's passionate work.
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Post by jhyatt on Dec 23, 2021 6:54:26 GMT -8
jpfenninger,
Thanks for the posting. I still grow in our greenhouse a couple of orchids that came from your Grandad, and have kept his bananas going all these years. Any idea what happened to the rest of his butterfly collection, that's not in frames scattered among the family's houses? And what about his office that was paneled with samples of rare tropical woods, which he also collected? I remember him showing me a pocketknife with hot pink sides carved from some african wood species. I think he still had his insurance business in those days...
Cheers, jh Tennessee
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Post by jhyatt on Dec 23, 2021 6:58:03 GMT -8
And another memory of Paul Pfenninger: He was apparently very active in some tropical fruit society, and once showed up at a meeting of the Kentucky Leps group in Louisville bearing a bunch of carambolas (a.k.a. "star fruit"), which he carved with the pink-sided pocketknife and shared with us. At the time, no one in the group had even heard of star fruit...
jh
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Post by vabrou on Dec 23, 2021 7:22:58 GMT -8
Back in 1984 I described a new species of hawkmoth Manduca wellingi Brou, based upon dozens of papered adults of this undescribed species sent to me by Eduardo Welling, type series capture dates (1960-1981), these were mostly obtained from the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. These were sent to me by Eduardo solely for the purpose of describing it in scientific literature. In my file cabinets, I have many years of handwritten correspondence from Eduardo. When I had my world collection of Sphingidae, I had at least 10,000 adult specimens from Mexico collected by two primary persons, one was Welling, who retired there from the US (I believe there was an ex-wife in the US involved in this story) eventually finding his way to Merida, Yucatan. He eventually took up with a local senorita and made a home there. There were children in the Merida home, but he never made clear to me whether they were his or not. He told me he never had any trouble with the local police, because every 6 months or so, he would make a cash donation to the local constabulary to stay out of their view. The other collector who provided me with large numbers of Mexican hawkmoths was a resident (back then) of Arizona, who over many years would make jaunts into Mexico and pick up material from a number of local collectors. He also brought into the US, many locally produced nick-knacks, and hand produced textile items, which he also sold when back in the US.
But, for many years, Eduardo had a room in, according to him 'the best hotel in town' and it cost him including room service and three meals, the huge sum of $1.00 US per day. He collected for many years by placing a light his hotel room window. He conveyed to me that he fell asleep early on one night and the entire room was filled with insects when he awakened in the morning. And because of that incident, the hotel threatened to throw him out. He also collected in other ways over the years, one involved getting on the local bus (the only transportation he had available), which traveled a route to many other connected adjacent towns, where he would then walk from streetlight to streetlight during the nights picking up goodies. The other offshoot of this same bus route collecting involved enlisting a number of local residents along the connected bus routes, even to traveling in Yucatan, and to other states in Mexico, e.g. Quintana Roo, and also out of Mexico, e.g. Guatemala, Belize, and others. These local collectors would give him papered specimens, and he would give them several centavos for each specimen they provided. He would ship insects not from Mexico, but would travel to neighboring Guatemala via bus and mail them from there.
He also wrote about the hardware cloth (screening) covering all the street lights where he visited to collect, because without protection, the huge beetles would break the glass envelopes of the lamps. Apparently, he lived without many amenities e.g. air conditioning, because he would often write about only opening the cases he stored his material in, a few times each year because of the great constant humidity of the area. Eduardo apparently lived in Mexico for about 50 years and he died January 26,1995.
Collecting using a light in an open window, reminds me of a publication I did in 2010 on the earliest collector known from Louisiana, USA, a German (Bavaria) emigrant, Baron Ludwig von Reizenstein (1826-1885), who settled and lived 1848-1885 in New Orleans during the Civil War Era. He too collected in the city of New Orleans and nearby areas back then, often collecting moths using a lantern in a window at home. Freely accessible web link: www.lsuinsects.org/people/vernonbrou/pdf/216.%202010.%20Brou%20Jr.%20V.A.%20Baron%20Ludwig%20von%20Reizenstein%20Father%20of%20Louisiana%20Lepidoptrists.pdf
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Post by mothman55 on Dec 24, 2021 7:34:00 GMT -8
Anyone remember a dealer named Norm Tremblay from Norland, Ontario, Canada? He spent much of his life collecting insects (mostly butterflies) from North and South America. He didn't advertise, but had a lengthy list of buyers around the world. He still does a bit of collecting, but his legs have hindered him from getting out as much as he would like. He is a good friend and certainly one of the "old time field collectors".
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Post by jpfenninger on Dec 24, 2021 9:39:13 GMT -8
I'm not entirely sure what happened to the butterflies and moths that were still alive/breeding, if that's what you're asking. He got some dementia later on in life before he died (didn't have it too long). The wood, however, as the butterflies, is scattered among various homes. His love of wood passed on to his sons. Some wood collected has been turned into some fine guitars as well. It's awesome to heard his orchids and bananas are still around.
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