Short Communication |
Corresponding author: Hugo A. Benítez ( hugobenitezd@gmail.com ) Academic editor: David C. Lees
© 2019 Hugo A. Benítez, Amado Villalobos-Leiva, Rodrigo Ordenes, Franco Cruz-Jofré.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Benítez HA, Villalobos-Leiva A, Ordenes R, Cruz-Jofré F (2019) Elevational record of Vanessa carye (Hübner 1812) (Lepidoptera Nymphalidae) in the northern Chilean Altiplano Highlands. Nota Lepidopterologica 42(2): 157-162. https://doi.org/10.3897/nl.42.38549
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Vanessa carye (Hübner, [1812]) has been reported to have a wide latitudinal range from Venezuela to the south of Chile (Patagonia). Populations are established at 3500 m in Putre region of Chile, with occasional observations around 4500 m. This article reports a new elevational record of V. carye above 5200 m located at the Sora Pata Lake, northeast of Caquena, in the highlands of the Chilean altiplano. This finding is the highest population ever reported for this migratory butterfly and one of the highest in the genus Vanessa.
The cosmopolitan butterfly genus Vanessa Fabricius, 1807 (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) is a small genus that comprises approximately 20 species present in all the continents except Antarctica. There are six species (V. cardui, V. virginiensis, V. atalanta, V. indica, V. carye and V. dimorphica) within this genus that show impressively large ranges spanning several thousand kilometers (
In April 2018, Vanessa carye butterflies were observed flying near Casiri lake (Fig.
This is the first Vanessa species ever reported in the high Andean Altiplano, flying at about 5200 m around Sora Pata Lake (Fig.
The genus Vanessa includes very well documented migratory butterflies, like the Painted Lady (V. cardui) which migrates from the Arctic Circle and crosses the Sahara Desert in Africa (
In Chile V. carye shares its territory with other species of its genus; in the mid north of Chile with V. terpsichore, and in the altiplano with V. braziliensis (Moore, 1883). V. braziliensis was discovered to be expanding its territory in the north of Chile within the last six years, particularly around Socoroma and towns nearby (
V. carye together with its European sister species V. cardui (
The authors thank the Projects Fondecyt de Iniciacion N° 11180366 and Redes de Investigación REDI170182 from CONICYT for funding this research Also thanks to Dr. Gerard Talavera and Dr. Hector Vargas for their advice for collection of Vanessa species in the field, to Maria Lazo de la Vega and Elizabeth Boenigk for proofreading the manuscript and to Alicia Marticorena and Joel Calvo for the Asteraceae identification from the Sora Pata Lake, and to David Lees for review. FCJ and AVL thanks CONICYTPCHA/doctorado nacional 2015-21150821, 2018-21180921.