Lepidoptera - The Butterflies of the Solomon Islands

2002, hard cover, approx A4, 413pp., hard cover, ca 90 colour plates, 200,000 words (limited edition). 1100 + specimens are illustrated life size in full colour. : systematics and biogeography particular relevance to the Australian region.

The Solomon Islands, an archipelago of more than a thousand scattered islands, coral atolls and reefs, stretches over a thousand miles in the South Pacific ocean, from the large island of Bougainville (geographically the westernmost island of the archipelago, but politically part of Papua New Guinea) to the tiny Polynesian outliers of Tikopia and Anuta in the east. Within this enormous and diverse range of islands, lie many individual islands and island groups which individually support a high percentage of butterflies and other creatures found nowhere else on earth.

Despite a colonial history, the Solomons are understudied faunistically. The first specimen (a female) of one of the largest butterflies known, Ornithoptera victoriae, was caught by the naturalist John MacGillivray in December 1854 on the south coast of Guadalcanal, and for a period from the 1880s Charles Morris Woodford, the first Resident Commissioner of the Solomon Islands Protectorate, braved head-hunters in order to collect butterflies and other natural history specimens. Since then few systematic studies have been carried out and the importance of the islands as a significant area of endemism has only recently been appreciated.

This book presents the first ever account of 346 butterfly taxa recognised as occurring in the Solomon Islands and includes a wealth of previously unpublished information on distribution and systematics. More than 1100 specimens, including many primary and secondary types, are illustrated life-sized in full colour, with many species and subspecies never illustrated before.

Treatment of each species and race includes adult characteristics, flight/habitat, host-plants, distribution and other notes. Introductory sections place the Solomons and its butterflies in a biogeographic context and incorporate information on the geological origins and climate of the islands, early collectors, mimicry and endemism, with tabulated species lists for each island, maps and a comprehensive Solomon Islands gazetteer.

This volume is produced in a limited edition and will appeal to butterfly enthusiasts, both amateur and professional.

Cat No.	Title	Author/s	ISBN	Price	Price + GST	Qty to Add
BTS3SEP	The Butterflies of the Solomon Islands: systematics and biogeography.	Tennant, J.	NULL	$435.00	$478.50

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