Article Butterflies of Linnaeus
Summary: A hoax butterfly species, invented as a practical joke, fooled many prominent naturalists.
Three butterflies owned and described by Carl Linnaeus The three butterflies shown to the right were part of the collection of the great eighteenth-century naturalist Carl Linnaeus. In 1763 he named and described all three of them in the twelfth edition of his Systema Naturae. However, only one of them was a real butterfly.
Linnaeus named the middle butterfly Papilio rhamni. It is a common butterfly in Europe, where it is better known as the Brimstone.
Linnaeus wrote that the other two butterflies were examples of a North American species, Papilio ecclipsis. In fact, all three butterflies are European brimstones. The top and bottom insects have simply had patches carefully painted on their wings. In other words, the Papilio ecclipsis is a hoax species.
This deception was uncovered in the nineteenth century by John Curtis, the author of many books about insects. It is not known who painted the patches on the wings of the butterflies.
References
- Dance, Peter. Animal Fakes & Frauds. Sampson Low. 1976. p.86.