The world's oldest collection of preserved animal specimens, Parthenos tigrina RMNH.INS.1471355

BLOG - Two 7 cm wide, dried imago butterflies are the oldest preserved specimens of animal in the history of science. The exceptionally well-preserved specimens were collected in Sorong, Papua (-0.883333, 131.255828) in 1630, making them the earliest type of collection in the history of modern animal taxonomy.

The two butterflies, stored at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden with ID: RMNH.INS.1471355, have different colors. The first butterfly has a dark brown body with dark brown and white wings, while the second specimen has a light brown body with light brown and white wings.

There is no information about who first collected the specimens from the wild and there was no formal taxon description until Samuel Constant Snellen van Vollenhoven (1816-1880) described them both as Parthenos tigrina in 1866.

The world's oldest collection of preserved animal specimens, Parthenos tigrina RMNH.INS.1471355 2

Vollenhoven was born in Rotterdam and was an entomologist and curator at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center from 1854 to 1873, retiring due to health problems. He founded Tijdschrift voor Entomologie in 1857, a journal of systematic and evolutionary entomology published by the Netherlands Entomological Society.

He described 9 genera and 471 species of insects. Together with Frederik Maurits van der Wulp (1818-1899), they compiled the first checklist of Diptera in the Netherlands. Wulp was an etymologist born in The Hague whose main interest was in Diptera.

Interestingly, the genus Parthenos first appeared from Jacob Hübner (1761-1826) in 1819, which had the synonyms Minetra Boisduval (1832) and Parthenus Agassiz (1846). Hübner was an Augsburg-born entomologist, one of the earliest figures in the field of entomological research and completed his first work entitled Beiträge zur Geschichte der Schmetterlinge in 1786-1790.

Over time two new species appeared in this genus, Parthenos cyaneus Moore (1877) and Parthenos aspila Honrath (1888). In 1904 the subspecies Parthenos tigrina subsp. pardalis Fruhstorfer appeared and thus the specimen RMNH.INS.1471355 changed to Parthenos tigrina subsp. tigrina van Vollenhoven (1866).

In 1912 Parthenos tigrina subsp. terentianus Fruhstorfer appeared and in 1915 Parthenos tigrina subsp. mysolica Rothschild appeared. Parthenos is family: Nymphalidae, order: Lepidoptera, class: Insecta, phylum: Arthropoda and kingdom: Animalia.

Read more:

Specimen RMNH.INS.1471355, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, https://data.biodiversitydata.nl/naturalis/specimen/RMNH.INS.1471355 (August 18, 2024)

By Aryo Bandoro
Founder of Dlium.com. You can follow him on X: @Abandoro.

Pink jewel dragonfly (Heliocypha fenestrata)

Pink jewel dragonfly ( Heliocypha fenestrata ) is an animal species in Chlorocyphidae, a dragonfly 40-45mm long, slender, predominantly black with bright pink and blue, flies swiftly, large eyes, very long wings, lives near fresh flowing water and waterways. H. fenestrata has a black body with an upper back decorated with three plots of squares in pink and a similar plot on the nape of the top. The sides to the bottom are decorated with plots in light blue. A pair of large, round and black eyes. The tail is long and segmented, cylindrical, predominantly black with several plots of light blue color at the base of the sides, the tip ends with two small tails and curves inward. The legs are jointed and are all black. The wings have a span of up to 80 mm, contain many pulse lines, elliptical tips, are dark and transparent, when exposed to sunlight they give off pink or green or blue or white reflections. Pink jewel dragonfly lives near freshwater ecosystems that flow and low light inten...

Screw tree (Helicteres isora)

Screw tree ( Helicteres isora ) is a species of plant in the Malvaceae family. It is a shrub or small tree, up to 8 meters tall. It has gray bark and alternate leaves, up to 22 cm long and 17 cm wide, oval in shape, with serrated edges and hairs. The flowers are red or white and reach a total length of 5.5 cm. The fruit is green when unripe, brown or gray when dry, twisted, spiral-shaped, and pointed at the tip. The seeds are black or brown, shiny, and diagonal, triangular, or rectangular. TAXON Kingdom: Plantae Phylum: Tracheophyta Subphylum: Angiospermae Class: Magnoliopsida Order: Malvales Family: Malvaceae Subfamily: Helicteroideae Tribe: Helictereae Genus: Helicteres Pluk. ex L. in Sp. Pl.: 963 (1753) Species: Helicteres isora L. in Sp. Pl.: 963 (1753) HETEROTYPIC SYNONYMS Helicteres baruensis var. ovata DC. in Prodr. 1: 476 (1824) Helicteres chrysocalyx Miq. ex Mast. in J.D.Hooker, Fl. Brit. India 1: 365 (1874) Helicteres corylifolia Buch.-Ham. ex Dillwyn in Rev. Hortus Malab....

Glombang (Lentinus squarrosulus)

Glombang ( Lentinus squarrosulus ) is a species of fungi in Polyporaceae, umbrella-shaped, strong pole, round, chewy and fleshy stamp, white with gray spots forming rings, scaly, growing on wood in tropical regions, fast growth of mycelia used for food and nutraceuticals. L. squarrosulus has a 1.5-10 cm long cap, the surface is convex inward until compressed with a slightly bumpy, jagged margin, initially white to brown at maturity. The bottom surface of the cap has gills, crowded, narrow, white to yellow with rough edges. Stems 20-60x4-10 mm, running to the center, pointing downward, upright or crooked, hairy to scaly, partially creamy veils leaving a ring or light zone towards the top of the stem which may disappear in age or the veil may remain intact and cover the gills. Pileus is thin, tough, fibrous and white. Spores are cylindrical, smooth, nonamiloid, 6-9,52.5x-3.5 μm and white in color. It grows singly but is more common in groups on fallen tree trunks, especially coconut...

Dlium