Thursday, November 28, 2024

Hemileuca Siriae

Continuing down the long list in alphabetical order, we pass by Hemileuca sandra, now considered a subspecies of maia; H. shastaensis, now considered a subspecies of eglanterina; and H. siriae, a species name that's not been used much. 

That's because it's new, and somewhat controversial. Ronald Brechlin and Erick Van Schayck described this species in a printed publication in 2014. By that time scientific journals were publishing online but Google's not showing any links, even to one of those pages that shows the summary, or part of it, and demands money to show the rest. 

Most of the online science sites do not have pages for Hemileuca siriae. Funet lists it as "unmatched" in the archives Funet excels in searching. Inaturalist has one "observation" consisting of four photos, two blurry. 


Photo by Henicorhina. It looks like H. peninsularis. Somewhere there's an explanation of a difference between the two, but it's not online.


Also by Henicorhina. 

Here's a summary of why species documented by R. Brechlin are not readily accepted as new, distinct species by other scientists. 


Briefly, he has had a tendency to define species by DNA differences that do not necessarily produce visible differences or prevent species from crossbreeding. 

Wikipedia has set up a page for Hemileuca siriae but has not filled it in with information except to say that it was found in Oaxaca, not Baja California.

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