Kishen, I have not been able to contact Harish in many years so I do not know what is going on with him (nobody knows). But here is what I have learned from others or found out myself when I started going back to original papers, species descriptions and various monographs for my own work:
I have not seen Harish’s collection. He apparently collected specimens but I do not know the size of his collection, or its importance. In any case, I expect few surprises from his collection if it can be located. He once told me that he had collecting permits from all over India, but I doubt this. His specimens were generally not deposited in India, although some of his type specimens (e.g., Eurema) were apparently submitted to ZSI Kolkata. I will be excited if these can be located. Most of his collection may be at NHM London or with him, it’s hard to say. A few folks at NHM who I talked to did not know of his collection when I visited there a few years ago. But Richard Vane-Wright may know something about this because Harish worked closely with him. As for his Western Ghats butterfly manuscript, I am sure that most of that information was compiled from published literature, specimens in NHM and a little bit of extrapolation. I have seen little original information from him about actual sightings, spot records and other stuff. In any case, the quality and detail of information he had gathered from various sources was wonderful. He really knew a lot based on his literature surveys and museum specimens. I am afraid that all of that information has gone completely underground with Harish himself, and that his book manuscripts probably share the same fate. Cheers, Krushnamegh. ________________________________ From: Kishen Das <[email protected]> Reply-To: butterflyindia <[email protected]> Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2011 13:27:32 -0500 To: butterflyindia <[email protected]> Subject: [ButterflyIndia] Regarding Dr. Harish Gaonkar Dear Krushnameghji, Have you seen Harish Gaonkar's collection ? Is it housed at the natural history museum, London or some place in India ? Do you know whether he actually collected all those specimens during his survey or its more like he collected few, saw few and composed the lists from JBNHS articles ? Last question, any idea when is his book ( Series of 5 books according to Dr. Ghorpade ) is due for release ? Regards, Kishen On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 12:19 AM, Gaurav Agavekar <[email protected]> wrote: that's a huge and very informative paper. thanks for letting us know about it. cheers, On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 4:19 AM, Kunte, Krushnamegh <[email protected]> wrote: Gaurav and others, just yesterday I came across this paper: Bean, A. E. 1968. Occurrence of Spindasis abnormis (Moore), (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) on the Western Ghats: a revised description, including male genitalia and notes on early development. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, 65: 618-632. This has a good bit of information about this species. Harish Gaonkar’ Maharashtra distribution must be from this paper, in which several Maharashtra sightings were reported. With best wishes, Krushnamegh. ------------------------------------------------- Krushnamegh Kunte, PhD Post-doctoral Research Fellow FAS Center for Systems Biology, Harvard University 52 Oxford St., Northwest Lab Room 458.40-3 Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Ph: (617) 496-0078, Cell: (512) 577-1370, Fax: (617) 495-2196 Email: [email protected] <http://[email protected]/> Other emails: [email protected] <http://[email protected]/> , [email protected] <http://[email protected]/> Personal website: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~kunte/index.htm Indian Foundation for Butterflies: http://ifoundbutterflies.org/ Google profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/krushnamegh ________________________________ ________________________________ From: Gaurav Agavekar <[email protected] <http://[email protected]/> > Reply-To: butterflyindia <[email protected] <http://[email protected]/> > Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2011 02:21:51 -0500 To: butterflyindia <[email protected] <http://[email protected]/> > Subject: Re: [ButterflyIndia] a note published on Abnormal Silverline kishen, we always keep visiting that place in the hope that we'll get some caterpillars. cheers, On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 1:50 AM, Kishen Das <[email protected] <http://[email protected]/> > wrote: Keep visiting that place and I am sure some day you will get the life-cycle. Great job. Kishen On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 4:44 AM, Gaurav Agavekar <[email protected] <http://[email protected]/> > wrote: hello folks, a note on the sighting of a rare butterfly, Abnormal Silverline Spindasis abnormis, has been published in the January 2011 issue of Parthenos: Lovalekar, R., G. Agavekar and K. Kunte. 2011. Spindasis abnormis, the endemic Abnormal Silverline butterfly of the Western Ghats, southwestern India (Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae). Parthenos, Jan. 2011:13-16. you can download Parthenos here: http://diversityindia.org/Parthenos/ <http://diversityindia.org/Parthenos/> or just the paper here: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~kunte/NaturalHistory.htm <http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/%7Ekunte/NaturalHistory.htm <http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~kunte/NaturalHistory.htm> > cheers, -- Gaurav Agavekar. -- Gaurav Agavekar. -- Gaurav Agavekar. -- Enjoy
