FishProfiles.com Message Forums

I thought I'd pop up a post here in the Recovery Room with the aim of finding out what other natural history interests, apart from fish, were present among the Board members. I'll start the ball rolling, as it were, and mention one of my own significant non-fish interests.

For eight years, I have been a volunteer entomological recorder, and a contributor to the records of the Butterfly Conservation organisation here in the UK. While butterflies are my main insect interest, I have also maintained some records of local dragonflies in my area, and some of the photographs taken during my entomological recording can be seen in my MSN Photo Album alongside the Panda spawning shots and other fish goodies. I've also been a member of the Lancashire & Cheshire Entomological Society for 12 years, and I've been an officer of the Society, holding a Secretarial post since the year 2000. I also have an interest in Lepidoptera worldwide, and one of my biggest ambitions is to visit Peru, not only because of the huge numbers of tropical fish I would find there, but also because Peru is home to no less than eight thousand species of butterfly. That would be my idea of fun: just me, the camera, a truckload of film, some tanks for photographing fish, and one of those climbing ropes to allow me to get at the canopy butterflies - six months in the Peruvian Amazon just photographing fish and butterflies!

Incidentally, one butterfly I want to photograph in the wild (and another native of Peru) is known as the Sapphire Foilwing (Morpho rhetenor). This is one of those butterflies that exhibits very marked sexual dichroism (i.e., the two sexes have very different wing colouration). Females are an apricot orange colour with a large russet-brown necklace marking upon the wings. Males, on the other hand, are a gorgeous iridescent metallic sapphire blue - they are so intensely reflective in the blue part of the spectrum, that when the males are engaging in territorial signalling to each other over the rainforest canopy, it is possible, on a cloudless day, to see the flashes of blue light from their wings while looking down from the window of an airliner at 30,000 feet. When a male has freshly emerged from the pupa, and has opened his wings for the first time in pristine condition in the sunlight, the colour is so intense that it is like looking into the heart of a blue laser - this butterfly is a supernova blast of blue, the insect equivalent of the Cardinal Tetra. Imagine the iridescence of the Cardinal Tetra, but spread over the entire wing surface of a butterfly with a six-inch wingspan, and you get some idea of the beauty of this creature. If you approach closely to a male in the last stages of drying his wings prior to taking flight, illuminated by brilliant noonday sunshine, you can feel how blue he is on your face, the light radiating is that intense. Take a look at this picture from my MSN Photo Album and get an idea of what a beauty it is!

http://groups.msn.com/CaliLasseiasGiantPhotoCompendium/shoebox.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=58

Oh, and I have a 30" x 20" version of that photo hanging over my mantelpiece at home. Needless to say, it is a perfect conversation starter for visitors!


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Wow! I'm nowhere near as into any one thing as you are.

I've got an 11 year old that's into anything that crawls, walks, flies, swims or slithers so we have 4 field guides that cover most of that. We'll observe or capture something and try to find it in one of the guides. I guess our interest is mainly in the local fauna and to a lesser extent geology.

Have fun in the great outdoors, Mike

i have a whole morpho butterfly set the morpho didius didius is the only one i can really once n remember
absolutely gorgeous insects i also have collections of luna moths and other large moths native to canada

kinda of weird but i collect skulls of animals n find that really interesting im also into taxidery to

im a hunter n fisher by blood n heart so ive always been into the outdoors
but i found a particular interest in reptiles mostly large lizards igunas n snakes as well as scorpions which make amazing pets
my next major purchase will either b an asian water monitor or sand monitor or burmese python