=>/gemlog.gmi Back =>/ Home # "Bog Hill" Data Comparison (with a sad twist) Although my last field trip to the FFH territory had to be canceled after seeing a bunch of tourists struggling to capture a plant with a phone, I've begun to review my own data spawning over four years. Overall the amount of butterfly species still is below average, even after expanding my research area to include the abandoned sandpit that is NOT part of the FFH area (all maps exclude it and various texts only mention the bare top of the pit; neither are being studied by the contracted researchers). Compared to my data, official data provided by my state is sparse and prone to some of the silliest misidentifications and plain made-up descriptions such as the pond in Zone III being declared a "fish pond" (it never hosted any kind of fish and never will). Two documents, one released in 2012 and another in 2020, offer some species lists, most of which are inconsistent (especially odonata which weren't recorded in 2011 but in 2019) or partially copypasted. Since I study an area just next to one of the two spots that was chosen to represent the entire hill, both lists can be compared directly. My list currently encompasses 28 species. An additional X highlights the species as NOT occurring on the hill itself but on the path in close proximity to the street: ``` Species table +------------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+ | Aglais io X | Issoria lathonia | Polyommatus bellargus | | Aglais urticae X | Maniola jurtina | Polyommatus coridon X | | Anthocharis cardamines | Melanargia galathea | Polyommatus icarus | | Aricia agestis X | Melitaea athalia spc. | Pyrgus malvae | | Coenonympha pamphilus | Ochlodes sylvanus | Thymelicus acteon | | Colias sp. | Pieris brassicae | Thymelicus lineola | | Cupido argiades X | Pieris napi X | Thymelicus sylvestris | | Cupido minimus | Pieris rapae | Vanessa atalanata | | Erynnis tages | Plebejus argus | | | Gonepteryx rhamni | Polygonia c-album X | | +------------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+ ``` Seven species overwhelmingly prefer areas neighboring the hill and have been recorded to actively avoid the hill and the entire FFH area itself. This pushes the overall amount of species down to 21. Now to the official lists published in 2012. Since this document covers four very small areas of which only two overlapping spots are situated a few meters southeast to my area, sorting those species alphabetically was required: ``` Species table +----------------------------+ | Coenonympha pamphilus | | Colias hyale/alfacariensis | | Erynnis tages | | Issoria lathonia | | Pieris napi | | Pieris rapae | | Polyommatus bellargus | | Polyommatus cordion | | Polyommatus icarus | | Pyrgus malvae | +----------------------------+ ``` And the reevaluation published in 2020 which I'm copying as-is. This list, unlike the previous one, does not state in which area each species was recorded, meaning this list is supposed to apply to the entire FFH territory: ``` Species table +-----------------------+--------------------------------+----------------------+ | Aporia crataeg | Plebicula thersites | Zygaena carniolica | | Chazara briseis | Polyommatus agestis/artaxerxes | Zygaena filipendulae | | Coenonympha arcania | Polyommatus bellargus | Zygaena viciae | | Coenonympha pamphilus | Polyommatus coridon | | | Colias hyale | Polyommatus icarus | | | Cupido minimus | Polyommatus thersites | | | Erynnis tages | Pontia edusa | | | Lysandra bellargus | Pyrgus malvae | | | Melitaea aurelia | Spialia sertorius | | | Papilio machaon | Thymelicus acteon | | +-----------------------+--------------------------------+----------------------+ ``` While the 2012 list mentions which methods were used to identify each species (with only two involving a net and only covering P. malvae and P. icarus but NOT P. thersites!), the 2020 list doesn't list any methods whatsoever. Before stripping the 2020 list off its various double entries, I needs to be pointed out that "Plebicula thersites" never has been a valid scientific name. I asked my friend who's much more familiar with taxonomy and he couldn't find any references for the genus "Plebicula" – and not even the literature used by those researchers (A. Bergmann, 1952) lists such a genus. It already is worrying enough that their only tool to identify species is a state-specific book from over 60 years ago, yet this still doesn't explain the double entries where each species listed twice also is being listed according to the current standard AND the entirely fake genus. Out of 23 entries, 21 species remain. Three species are moths (Zygaena) that weren't monitored in previous years and there's no explanation as to why they suddenly are being included. Excluding those pushes this list down 18 species. Aporia crataeg is the only species listed without a common name and I had to look this one up myself due to never having heard of it. Indeed it's the black-veined white that I suspected to be native to my area but so far still remains to be discovered. Given that I also failed to spot it near the Meisel where it is said to be common and stable AND may be confused with P. napi which was not recorded in 2020, this observation is dubious. Speaking of "dubious observations", Spialia sertorius (red-underwing skipper) can be misidentified even easier than whites, especially when plenty of old P. malvae are active. Since it's entirely dependent on a single plant that does not grow within this area, this recording is, with very little doubt, false OR at least not applicable to the areas near my field lab (the 20212 list list this species for the northern part of the FFH territory, alongside the black-veined white, however most parts of this area aren't even accessible and border on fields that barely host any insects, effectively cutting it off from the hill). What ultimately led me to believe that those researchers are plain dilettantes were three listings: Colias hyale is a minor offender among the three species raising my concerns. C. hyale cannot be identified without observing it in its caterpillar stage – all species recorded in both lists are said to be adults. The first list gets this right, the second doesn't, and both lists are from the same people. The second species is Chazara briseis (hermit), which every single guide states to be exclusive to the Kyffhäuser mountains. If even other researchers discount those sightings, something has to be fundamentally off. Melitaea aurelia is on par with the hermit of being the worst offender. This one is virtually impossible to keep apart from M. athalia AND M. britomartis and even my friend was skeptical about those sightings. Consulting a rather obscure database established in 2022 and managed by the same guy working on the "Red Lists" for my state, it turned out that all of those sightings were retroactively changed to M. athalia. Once again each individual only saw some superficial observations; no nets, no genital studies, not even caterpillars or eggs, and certainly not any pictures whatsoever. It's a Melitaea but good luck figuring out which one and whether two or even all three possibilities occur here. ### Conclusions The data provided by my state vastly underreport the species composition whilst simultaneously introducing grave errors and an overall poor accessibility. Only various Google/DuckDuckGo searches led me to those documents provided by the state of Thuringia. The obscure database maintained by Gerd Kuna does not include even half of those listed species, with Kuna likely having discarded many alleged observations the same way I did. That a single group of researchers can come up with two conflicting documents within less than ten years is remarkable in itself but further highlights the sloppy utilization of the scientific method. The overall sloppiness only gets topped by the fact that every single species list ended up being discarded by the same researchers to advocate for intensive and intentional overgrazing to "protect the landscape", even though various parts of the hill and the northern area are caving in and thus revealing an abundance of groundwater that feed the very swampy holes they deemed to be "too dirty" and "not worth the effort". Keeping the entire area artificially sparse and dry also wholly disregards climate change and how this will either lead to straight up desertification or landslides revealing underground swamps. Quite funny how the follow-up studies don't cover plants at all. The plants were the reason why this place was declared a "semi-natural steppe" in the first place but maybe they were too embarrassed to admit that most species were introduced after the reunification and got wiped out entirely by their own recommendations. So far I have only discovered a single plant that has taken over my area – and it's incredibly unpopular among the vast majority of insects. --- At this point I'd include various links but I don't want to dox myself (yet). I also found the tourists who submitted their single recording of a sainfoin to observation.org (they traveled all the way from the other side of the country to scan a single species in every FFH territory in my district; I discovered an unrecorded I. lathonia, one misidentified P. bellargus and a plain awful shot of a L. phlaeas). =>https://www.tagfalter-thueringen.de/ [GER] Tagfalter in Thüringen (the obscure database)