A retired middle school teacher in northwest China's Shaanxi Province has discovered two new butterfly species, which may be unique to China, according to butterfly experts.
Zoologists have named the two species, which have just been listed in the World Butterfly Catalogue, Ypthima pseudobalda and Ampittia tristella. Ypthima pseudobalda is a medium size butterfly whose wings are brown with two light blue spots in the middle and a black eyespot. Ampittia tristella is small with yellow-veined dark brown wings that have three yellow spots. The butterflies were discovered in 1999, when Shou Jianxin, then a 55-year-old philosophy teacher, gathered the specimens on a hill in Ningshan County.
"I have been studying butterflies since 1985, but I had never seen butterflies like these ones. I guessed they might be a new species" - Shou Jianxin, a butterfly enthusiast and member of the China Insect Institute.
To confirm his hypothesis, he contacted Zhou Yao, a 95-year-old butterfly expert and founder of the Butterfly Branch of the China Insect Institute. They spent nearly eight years thumbing through domestic and foreign monographs and found that the two species were not included in any of them.
Shou is delighted with his discovery.
"It is very hard to find new butterfly species in China" - Shou Jianxin.
According to experts, China already boasts over 2,000 butterfly species.
