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1961
Journal of the Lepidopterists Society
95
EARLY RECORDS OF EREBIA DISCOIDALIS (SATYRID^) IN WISCONSIN
by William H. Elder
A recent inquiry concerning my records of Erebia discoidalis in Wisconsin has prompted me to publish them and to make a search of the literature and some of the larger collections in order to determine the status of this species in the United States.
No specimen of Erebia discoidalis (Kirby) taken within the confines of continental United States south of the Canadian border was found in the extensive collections of the United States National Museum, Washington, the American Museum of Natural History, New York, the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, Snow Entomological Museum, Lawrence, Kansas, or the Milwaukee Public Museum. Letters to collectors of long standing in Wisconsin produced no records nor did inquiries to those long interested in the genus Erebia, such as P. R. Ehrlich, C. F. dos Passos, Alexander B. Klots and P. S. Remington.
It therefore seems of value to set on record data from three specimens which I took within a mile or two of Argonne, Forest County, Wisconsin when I resided there as a boy some thirty years ago.
Data from the original labels follows.
Sex Date Captured Width in mm.
Male May 29, 1929 40
Female May 10, 1930 43
Male May 23, 1931 41
The first specimen is now in the Milwaukee Public Museum (catalogue number 102,197), the other two in my private collection. All are small for the averages given by Warren (1936) in his monograph of the genus. Dos Passos (1940) has pointed out that some specimens from southern Manitoba are smaller and paler than those from farther north considered typical of the species. Mine apparently were the first three specimens taken in the United States, the only other being that of Daggy (1936) in northern Minnesota, May 31, 1935.
Of his capture Daggy says, "Taken in a small, swampy clearing surrounded by willows in a dense forest of mixed hardwoods and conifers. The fresh condition of the specimen and the early date of its capture would seem to indicate that the butterfly is a native to Minnesota and not a chance migrant from farther north."
96
Elder: Erebia discoidalis
Vol.15: no.2
The first specimen I captured was dull and worn and I assumed it had been blown in by the high winds of the previous day which accompanied a storm movement typically passing from west to east. But the second specimen, the female, was in fresh condition and much finer than either male. It was also the earliest on the wing, nearly a month earlier than the usual date for the species as given by Warren (1936) and Ehrlich (1956).
The habitat in which all three specimens were found was open, grassy meadows with conifers, willows and mixed hardwoods nearby, just as Ehrlich found them in Alaska and elsewhere (1956, 1958). He states that all doubtless feed on grasses or sedges, so that food plants can hardly be a limiting factor in their distribution.
The range of the species was given by Holland (1931 new ed.) as "widely distributed from the region of Hudson Bay to the Pacific in Alaska". This undoubtedly was based on Kirby's original description of specimens supposedly taken near Hudson Bay, but dos Passos (1940) has shown that Kirby's specimens really came from Saskatchewan. McDunnough (1937) showed that the species ranged as far east as Sudbury, Ontario, and Freeman (1958) gives records of its occurrence in all the southern Canadian provinces from Alberta to Quebec. He states, "The distributional pattern of E. discoidalis Kby- (Fig. 26) suggests a post glacial entry from the north-west, apparently not yet having reached eastern Quebec and the Maritime provinces." It seems very likely that search in proper habitats in North Dakota (Turtle Mountains) and the upper penninsula of Michigan will reveal that it is present in these states as well as in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
References
Daggy, R. H., 1936. New butterfly record for United States. Ent. news 47: 52. dos Passos, C. F., 1940. A new subspecies of Erebia discoidalis Kirby (Rhopalocera:
Satyridae). Amer. mus. novitates 1053: 1-2. Ehrlich, P. R., 1956. Ecological observations on Erebia (Lepidoptera: Satyridae) in
northwestern America. Ent. news 67: 29-36. ................, 1958. Problems of arctic-alpine insect distribution as illustrated by the
butterfly genus Erebia (Satyridae). Proc. X. int. congress ent. 1: 683-686. Freeman, T. N., 1958. The distribution of arctic and subarctic butterflies. Proc. X. int.
congress ent. 1: 659-672. Holland, W. J., 1931. The butterfly book, new ed. 424 pp. + 77 pis. Doubleday,
Doran & Co. Inc., Garden City, N.Y. McDunnough, J., 1937. Critical notes on the Canadian species of the genus Erebia
(Lepid.). Canadian ent. 69: 14-18. Warren, B. C. S., 1936. Monograph of the genus Erebia. 407 pp., 104 pis. British
Museum (Nat. Hist.), London.
Dept. of Zoology, University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo., U. S. A.