Identification of North, Central & South American butterfly type specimens
Research by Macleay-Miklouho-Maclay Fellow Dr Angel L. Viloria on butterfly specimens in the CCWM’s Macleay insect collection has led to the identification of over 260 type specimens. Type specimens are those used in the original descriptions of species and are scientifically important for the correct naming and identification of species.
Dr Viloria’s research was originally aimed at determining whether the collection potentially held type specimens of species from the Americas described by English entomologist Dru Drury between 1770 and 1782. He found that not only were those present, but also type specimens from the work of several other early entomologists, dating back to 1760 and covering all continents.
The specimens were acquired in the late 1700s and early 1800s by Scottish collector Alexander Macleay, who by the time he came to Sydney in 1826 to become the Colonial Secretary of NSW had amassed one of the largest and most important private collections of insects in Great Britain. Dr Viloria’s research brings these ‘lost’ specimens to the attention of other scientists and highlights the importance of Macleay’s collection.
About the speaker
Ángel L. Viloria is Macleay-Miklouho-Maclay Fellow 2023, Chau Chak Wing Museum.
Ángel L. Viloria is Senior Researcher at the Centre of Ecology of the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Investigations (IVIC). He has a Degree in Biology (1990) from the Universidad del Zulia, Maracaibo, Venezuela, and a Doctor of Philosophy (zoology, 1998) from a joint program of the University of London (King’s College) and the Natural History Museum, UK.
He has pursued investigations on a variety of subjects related to zoology, theoretical biogeography, history and philosophy of the biological sciences. His main subject of research is the systematics of butterflies of Tropical America, especially the Andean browns, members of the subfamily Satyrinae. A former Lecturer and Associate Professor in zoology and entomology of his own Alma Mater, he has also taught biogeography, ecology and forensic entomology in other universities and research institutions of Venezuela. His zoological exploration and research have rendered the discovery and description of nearly 150 new animal taxa from Tropical America. He was the Simon Bolivar Chair Professor (2019-2020) at the University of Cambridge, UK, and is a Jinshan Scholar of the Institute of Applied Ecology at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University (Fuzhou, China) since 2016. Dr. Viloria is author and co-author of 140+ scientific papers, 210+ popular science articles and 8 books, including the standard reference, Catalogue of the hostplants of the Neotropical butterflies.