Abstract
The editors of this volume asked contributors to offer personal narratives related to the study of Lepidoptera, in my case butterflies. I have studied tropical butterflies for a long time and in many locations. Early on, butterflies influenced the paths I chose in life, and they have remained part of my philosophical rudder. My memory swarms with tales that include butterflies, often in context with other people. The difficulty has been to choose which memories might be amusing to an unseen audience. The chronicle here evolved during fieldwork in China (August 2014) from where I am writing this into a trio of recollections that influenced my development as a field biologist. Much of what I’ve written happened before cell phones and personal computers, during a time when “R” represented a letter in the alphabet and a rating for sexy movies. Let me begin by quoting a book title by the novelist and lepidopterist Vladimir Nabokov, Speak Memory.
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Acknowledgements
Many people have influenced my work on Lepidoptera and helped navigate the way forward. I hope those named in the imperfect narratives will recall situations, and perhaps smile. Butterflies are good botanists and to know something beyond their Latin names, I think you need to find caterpillars , and for that you need to know plants. Thanks to Robin Foster, Al Gentry (deceased), Luis Diego Gomez (deceased), Bill Haber, Dan Janzen , Larry Mellichamp, Luis Poveda, and Warren Wagner (deceased) for setting me on that path. For discussions on butterflies that I still think about today I acknowledge Phil Ackery, George Austin (deceased), Peng Chai, Robert Dudley, Tom Eisner (deceased), Larry Gilbert, Carla Penz, Mike Singer , Gordon Small (deceased), Jeremy Thomas, John Turner , and Dick Vane-Wright. Finally I thank my wife and colleague Carla Penz (The Mighty Phlea) for support, criticism, enthusiasm, and understanding over the last 20 years, in addition to patience beyond category.
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© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
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DeVries, P. (2015). Butterfly Reflections in Thirds. In: Dyer, L., Forister, M. (eds) The Lives of Lepidopterists. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20457-4_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20457-4_11
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