US EPA

6499575 

Journal Article 

Species Ambiguity 

Heinrich, B 

2020 

1 

Natural History
ISSN: 0028-0712 

128 

2 

9-9 

When I consulted David L. Wagner's Caterpillars of Eastern North America (Princeton University Press, 2005), I found a photograph of a viceroy caterpillar, but the text indicated that Caterpillars of white admiral and red-spotted purple (each representing different subspecies of Limenitis arthemis) similar to viceroy, but a little less spiny: scales on head and spine cluster on T2, A2, A7 and A8 proportionally smaller. . . and the 'antlers' slightly more clubbed than those of the viceroy. entiation of species by morphological features became all the more difficult in distinguishing the relevant, or telling, features from the spurious; from convergent evolution; and from mimicry, which in some cases was found to be astounding and extended not only to species but to inanimate objects, as with the caterpillars just described, and in the viceroy's almost perfect mimicry of the chemically-defended monarch butterfly. physical characteristics for species designation-so deeply engrained in our traditions and consciousness-faces further difficulties when applied to differences in life cycle and between the sexes. ct remains that except for birds and some other vertebrate animals, it is practically impossible to prove empirically_what many species are, according to the current modern, strictly theoretical definition of Ernst Mayr (1904-2005), namely: species are groups of interbreeding natural populations that are reproductively isolated from other such groups. 

; Names; Physical characteristics; Species; Spine; Antlers; Mimicry; Traditions; Natural populations; Butterflies & moths; Life cycles; Deoxyribonucleic acid--DNA; Taxonomy; Physical properties; Females; Birds; Caterpillars; Reproductive isolation; Butterflies; Vertebrates; Morphology; Males/