In 1966, medical entomologist Dean Fanara, PhD, conducted
research on malaria and Chagas disease in northeast Colombia for the Pan American Health
Organization. It is the land of the Bari people who had defeated several Spanish
expeditions in the 16th century. Dr. Fanara enjoyed his
stay and made friends with the Bari. It is hardly possible to not
succumb to the beauty and diversity of butterflies in South
American tropical forests. Being an entomologist, Dr. Fanara
started to collect them. In the wilderness near Puerto Reyes, along
an unnamed small stream, he gathered a collection of 98 beautiful
specimens which he recently donated to the Denver Museum of Nature
& Science. Our specimen of the week is a Blue-frosted Banner,
Catonephele numilia (Cramer, 1776) of the family
Nymphalidae from Dr. Fanara's donation.
The Museum houses and preserves over 60,000 specimens of moths
and butterflies, or Lepidoptera. Many of these insects are
from Colorado and the surrounding mountain and plains region, but a
considerable number of them are tropical. Butterfly and moth
enthusiasts and researchers from the region, the High
Country Lepidopterists, meet at three large scientific
institutions: The Gillette Museum at Colorado State University,
the University of Colorado Museum of Natural
History, and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science take
turns hosting this regional meeting every year. Next year in July,
DMNS will be host to a major international conference on
butterflies and moths, the combined Annual Meeting of the Lepidopterists'
Society and its European counterpart, the Societas Europaea Lepidopterologica.
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