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1955
The Lepidopterists' News
67
DANAUS GILIPPUS IN MISSISSIPPI by Bryant Mather
The remark by Mrs. Hopf (1954) that she had supposed that Danaus berenice was confined to the southern part of Florida, around the Everglades, suggests the desirability of recording its occurrence on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. The fact of such occurrence is not noted in either of the published lists (Weed, 1894, and Hutchins, 1933), and has been mentioned only once, incorrectly, in the literature. CHERMOCK (1950) includes Danaus berenice as one of five species listed by Hutchins but not seen by Mather in Mississippi until that year. This is incorrect since the species was not listed by Hutchins and was not seen by Mather until 1953.
Eight Mississippi records are known. They are:
Date
Locality
Record by
189? 1910
Aug. 1916 Sept. 1916 18 Aug. 1940 12 May 1952
8 Aug. 1953
9 Aug. 1953
Ocean Springs Biloxi
Long Beach Gulfport Gulfport Moss Point Biloxi Gulfport
H. E. Weed F. M. Jones W. J. Frederich C. C. Greer H. I. O'Byrne L. Harris, Jr. Bryant Mather Bryant Mather
Present Location
Miss. State College not known Miss. State Coll. Miss. State Coll. Univ. Missouri Sight record Sight record Mather Collection
Ocean Springs and Moss Point are in Jackson County; the other localities are in Harrison County. All of these localities are in the southern parts of the counties bordering the Gulf of Mexico in what has been designated as the "Gulf Strip" by Klots (1951), who gives the range of D. gilippus as "s. Georgia, Florida, Gulf Strip, Mississippi Valley..."
It was collected once by JUNG (1950) on 9 November 1937 in a swamp in the eastern part of Orleans Parish, Louisiana. I have a male that I picked up dead on 6 October 1950 beside U.S. Highway 11 near Slidell, St. Tammany Parish, La., 11 miles from the Mississippi State line.
The Mississippi and Louisiana specimens before me correspond with the figures and descriptions of Danaus gilippus berenice Cramer given by KLOTS (1951), Holland (1947), and Clark (1941) as does another specimen, ex coll. Lucien Harris, Jr., taken at Coleraine Plantation, Folkston, Georgia, 28 May 1950. Other specimens taken by me at Houston, Harris Co., Texas, 28 October 1953, and at Tucson, Pima Co., Arizona, 26 October 1954, correspond with Danaus gilippus strigosus Bates. Harris (1950) reports that he took specimens of D. strigosus at St. Simon Island, Georgia and that Eustis reported it from Augusta, Ga. Grossbeck (1917) reported that Hebard had recorded D. strigosus from Miami, Florida, (28 Jan. — 8 Feb.) but regards it as "doubtful whether this record really refers to strigosus."
68
MATHER: Danaus gilippus
Vol.9: nos.2-3
I note that in the series of five males and three females before me, the males are all noticeably larger than the females, as indicated below, where "mm." is the forewing length in millimeters.
Males Females
subsp. date State mm. subsp. date State mm.
28 May Ga. 35
28 Oct. Tex. 38
26 Oct. Ariz. 36
Average 36
Average 43
Klots (1951) gives the expanse as 3.1 — 3.3 in. The approximate average thorax width of the specimens before me is 3 mm. Klots' values therefore convert to forewing lengths of 38 — 40 mm. My specimens suggest a forewing-length range of at least 35 — 46 mm, with a range of 40 — 46 mm. for males and 35 — 38 mm. for females. In any case, both the values given by Klots and those derived from measurements of these specimens indicate that both subspecies of Danaus gilippus include specimens with fore-wings less than 40 mm. long. This would appear to invalidate the primary criterion given in the key presented by CLARK (1941) for separating D. gilippus and D. jamaicensis Bates. Clark however notes that "certain pale specimens of D. gilippus strigosus from Mexico approach D. jamaicensis so very closely as to suggest that jamaicensis should be considered as a subspecies of gilippus rather than as a distinct species." The possibility of a relation between the specimen of D. jamaicensis from Florida referred to by CLARK and the records of D. gilippus strigosus from Georgia and Florida by HARRIS (1950) and Grossbeck (1917) is suggested.
References
Chermock, Ralph L., 1950. Southeast — Florida to Louisiana, north to Arkansas and
Maryland. Lepid. News 4: 99-102. Clark, Austin H., 1941. Notes on some North and Middle American Danaid butterflies.
Proc. US.Nat. Mus. 90: 531-542. Grossbeck, John A., 1917. Insects of Florida, IV Lepidoptera. Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat.
Hist. 37: 1-147. Harris, Lucien, Jr., 1950. The butterflies of Georgia. Bull. Georgia Soc. Naturalists.
5: 29 pp. Holland, W.J., 1947. The butterfly book. 424 pp. Doubleday & Co., Garden City, N.Y. Hopf, Alice L., 1954. Sex differences observed in larvse of Danaus berenice. Lepid.
News 8: 123-124. Hutchins, Ross E., 1933. Annotated list of Mississippi Rhopalocera. Canad. Ent. 65:
210-213. Jung, Rodney C, 1950. An annotated list of the Rhopalocera of the New Orleans area.
Proc. Louisiana Acad. Sci. 13: 42-48. Klots, Alexander B., 1951. A field guide to the butterflies. 349 pp. Houghton Mifflin
Co., Boston. Weed, Howard Evarts, 1894. A preliminary list of the butterflies of north-eastern
Mississippi. Psyche 7: 129-131.
P.O. Drawer 2131, Jackson, Miss., U.S.A.
berenice 9 Aug. Miss. 45 berenice
6 Oct. La. 46 strigosus
strigosus 26 Oct. Ariz. 44
40
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