A note from Joseph Rossano:
As an artist, I strive to distill ideas, concepts, and reality into their bare essence. My resulting minimalist sculptures, I hope, convey an emotion, ask a question, or direct the viewer on a path of introspection and investigation, as they explore man's impact on the environment. My series "BOLD" is named for the acronym for the Barcode of Life Data Systems database. The subject of each specimen box is neither real nor is it an accurate representation of the creature it is designed to represent; rather, it is a jeweled representation of reality that draws the viewer in for a closer inspection. What is the story of this specimen? What is the text on the side of the piece? What is a DNA barcode? Read on for answers to these and other questions.
About Porphyrogenes Burns - by Daniel H. Janzen
You are a 12-gram, insectivorous, tropical rainforest bird, foraging in shady, tangled, dappled, rustling foliage where edible caterpillars and other insects are likely to shelter.
Abruptly an eye appears, 1–5 centimeters from your bill. The eye or a portion of it is half seen, obstructed, shadowed, partly out of focus, more or less round, multicolored, and perhaps moving. If you pause a millisecond to ask whether that eye belongs to acceptable prey or to a predator, you are likely to be—and it takes only once—someone’s breakfast.
In the first glance at the female of Porphyrogenes Burns01, the reaction is “well, not all ACG rain forest Hesperiidae” are mimics, since there is nothing else known that “looks” like this. Hmm. Think again. Yes, as the lepidopterologist tends to see a butterfly, looking for a quite exact match before “mimicry” crosses the mind, there is nothing else like P. Burns01. But how does this butterfly appear when buzzing around in the dark understory of the forest, and/or in the dusk when it most likely flies (no one has knowingly seen this butterfly in flight in ACG, despite more than 40 having been reared by the caterpillar inventory, mostly feedingon Machaerium seemannii)?
There are tens of species of ACG rain forest hesperiids that are approximately the same medium-large size, dark brown to almost black, and blessed with a white band or archipelago of white patches in the middle of the forewing (Nascus spp., Celaenorrhinus spp., Telemiades spp., Narcosius spp., Ridens spp., etc.). Many if not all are denizens of the dusk and the shady forest understory, and all give the same impression of a dark blur with a white marker. All are fast as lightning, very alert to an approaching shape or motion, and all radiate the message “I am too fast, don’t bother to try to catch me”. Yes, each has a large enough body to make a plump meal for the pursuing insectivorous bird, but even that enticement is unlikely to elicit a pursuit if it does not pay dividends.
The male of P. Burns01 is quite a different animal, with its wings free of markings uniform brown with even a slight purplish sheen. But again, as in so many other ACG species of butterflies, it is also easily visualized as a member of a different complex of mimetic hesperiids. But the male revealed the tip of an iceberg.
This species was unknown to science before the ACG caterpillar inventory. But with the male in hand, it was an obvious idea to search the medium-large uniformly brown hesperiids accumulated at INBio from the many nights of moth collecting at light traps by INBio parataxonomists throughout Costa Rica. Indeed, among them were four male Porphyrogenes that to any bird or collector looked exactly like P. Burns01. But John Burns dissected them and found at least four more species of Porphyrogenes – yes, one species per specimen - none known before from Costa Rica. This of course means four more species of females as well, and even though they are unknown, it is a fair guess that some may be quite similar to the female shown here. South America, which according to Bernard Hermier and his study of Porphyrogenes as a whole contains at least 15 species of Porphyrogenes, has some females that – though known from only a very few specimens – are quite similar to those of P. Burns01.
It will not have escaped the observer that many of the moths and butterflies that we describe in this book are undescribed, as is P. Burns01. But the taxonomic process is in motion, and perhaps even before this book sees the light of day it will be blessed with its anticipated patronym, being baptized in honor of Peter Wege of Grand Rapids, Michigan, who has so strongly supported the purchase and conservation of the very forest in which P. Burns01 maintains a healthy breeding population, and will do so into perpetuity thanks to Peter’s help.
If you look closely at the side of the encasement on this work of art, you’ll see a series of A’s, C’s, G’s and T’s. They make up a DNA sequence, but not just any sequence – it’s a sequence unique to this species. Each species has a different sequence at this particular spot in their DNA code. Scientists call this sequence fragment a “DNA barcode”. If each part of the sequence were represented by a different colour, it might look like:
What is a DNA barcode?
DNA barcoding uses a small fragment of a single gene in an organism’s DNA to identify the species to which that organism belongs, much like one might use a UPC barcode to distinguish different products. These powerful tools are helping scientists to catalogue the world’s biodiversity. The process began in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, and scientists here – like collaborator Dr. Paul Hebert of the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario (see below) – continue to lead international work aiming to catalogue the earth’s life forms completely.
More information:
• View a video of Dr. Dan Janzen discussing DNA Barcoding.
• Learn more about using DNA barcoding to advance the discovery and identification of butterflies, moths, and skippers (i.e. Lepidoptera).
• Learn about the International Barcode of Life (iBOL) project, an Ontario-led worldwide effort to use DNA barcoding to identify all the species in the world.
For more information, click on these links of interest:
The art of Joseph Rossano
• Joseph Rossano’s official site
DNA barcoding
• Barcode of Life Data Systems
• Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding
• International Barcode of Life (iBOL)
Biodiversity and conservation
• Area Conservacion de Guanacaste (Costa Rica)
Data and images from the ACG caterpillar rearing inventory
• Joe Rossano barcoded butterflies in Fusion Tables
• Other ACG barcoded butterflies in Fusion Table blog
• Janzen and Hallwachs caterpillar inventory database
Please reference: A tropical horde of counterfeit predator eyes Daniel H. Janzen, Winnie Hallwachs, and John M. Burns PNAS | June 29, 2010 | vol. 107 | no. 26. Also see: Remarkable Creatures: Insects The Can't Beat Them Scare Them
