Resolution of a muddle in butterfly labelling resulting from the activities of Colin Wyatt

Abstract

Issues relating to the fake labelling and theft of the holotypes of Pseudalmenus chlorinda barringtonensis Waterhouse, 1928 and Miletus meleagris Waterhouse, 1903 from Australia by Colin Wyatt are clarified and resolved.

Full text

RESOLUTION OF A MUDDLE IN BUTTERFLY LABELLING
RESULTING FROM THE ACTIVITIES OF COLIN WYATT
W. JOHN TENNENT1, 2 and MICHAEL F. BRABY3, 4
1 Scientic Associate, Department of Life Sciences, Terrestrial Vertebrates Division,
Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, England
(Corresponding author: Email: johntennent@hotmail.co.uk)
2 Honorary Associate, Oxford Museum of Natural History, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PW, England
3 Division of Ecology and Evolution, Research School of Biology, RN Robertson Building,
46 Sullivans Creek Road, The Australian National University, Acton, ACT 2601, Australia
4 Australian National Insect Collection, GPO Box 1700, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia
(Email: michael.braby@anu.edu.au)
Abstract
Issues relating to the fake labelling and theft of the holotypes of Pseudalmenus chlorinda
barringtonensis Waterhouse, 1928 and Miletus meleagris Waterhouse, 1903 from Australia by Colin
Wyatt are claried and resolved.
Key words: Wyatt Theft Collection, buttery theft, fake labels
Introduction
This note seeks to explain and resolve some slightly inaccurate data in two
papers (Braby and Eastwood 2019; Tennent et al. 2024) resulting from the
activities of Colin Wyatt, an English amateur lepidopterist who remained in
Australia from 1939–1946, for the whole of the Second World War. Among his
many positive attributes, Wyatt was a gifted artist, and he was employed during
the War as a camoeur attached to the Royal Australian Air Force, where his
duties included oering advice on concealing the presence of military
installations from the air. However, towards the end of his time in Australia
Wyatt visited museums in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, where he stole
>3,000 buttery specimens and returned with them to England. The thefts were
discovered early, quite by chance, and as a result Wyatt appeared before West
Ham Magistrates Court in London on 21 May 1947, where he pleaded guilty to
a charge of Unlawful Possession of 1,600 buttery specimens. He was ned
£100.
The task of returning specimens to their rightful museums was dicult,
primarily because Wyatt had, for reasons known only to himself, already
removed some specimen data labels and replaced them with often wildly
unlikely false data labels. He deliberately exchanged original labels and
destroyed others, including those associated with type specimens, to a degree
where the resultant chaos in labelling and specimen identication is unlikely ever
to be fully resolved. As a result of eorts to reconcile labels and specimens stolen
by Wyatt, all specimens returned to Australian museums can now be identied
by a yellow card label: “passed through C. W. Wyatt Theft coll. 1946–1947”,
indicating that specimen data should be treated with the utmost caution.
In this note, we clarify labelling issues relating to the name-bearing types of two
taxa, Pseudalmenus chlorinda barringtonensis Waterhouse, 1928, and Miletus
Australian Entomologist 51 (2): 99–102 (14 June 2024) 99

meleagris Waterhouse, 1903, stolen by Wyatt. In both cases, the holotypes were
stolen and the original labels substituted with fakes; the original labels were then
placed on specimens of dierent species.
Pseudalmenus barringtonensis Waterhouse, 1928
The most bizarre known example of Wyatt’s interference concerns the holotype
of P. chlorinda barringtonensis. It was among the specimens stolen from the
Australian Museum, Sydney by Wyatt, subsequently recovered and returned to
Australia. Years later, on close examination by Braby and Eastwood (2019) it
was found that the true labels of the barringtonensis holotype male were now
associated with a ‘fake’ specimen, which was actually Pseudalmenus chlorinda
(Blanchard, [1848]), carefully painted with red lines on the upperside of the
hindwing to make it look like P. barringtonensis Waterhouse, 1928 (Braby and
Eastwood, 2019: 532, Fig. 2). In revising the taxonomy of Pseudalmenus, Braby
and Eastwood (2019) raised P. barringtonenis to the status of a full species. The
correct label data for the true holotype of P. barringtonensis (Braby & Eastwood,
2019: 532, Fig. 3) is “Barrington Tops 30 Oct 1922”; the correct type labels were
attached to the fake specimen painted by Wyatt (Braby and Eastwood, 2019: 532,
Figs 1–3) and the true holotype now had a false label reading “Barrington Tops
28.10.42 C. Wyatt” (Braby and Eastwood, 2019: 532, Figs 4–6).
The label clusters illustrated by Braby and Eastwood (2019: 532, Fig. 3 [fake
specimen, true holotype label] and Fig. 6 [true holotype specimen, fake label])
contributed to a misunderstanding which results in this note. Braby and
Eastwood (2019: 532, Fig. 6) depicted the false label (the handwritten Wyatt
label with an alleged collection date 14 years after the description) and two
modern labels: (1) the cautionary yellow Wyatt theft collection label, (2) the red
label “Holotype Pseudalmenus barringtonensis stat. nov.”. It was the latter label
that Tennent et al. (2024) misunderstood. Braby and Eastwood (2019: 536)
stated:
We have, therefore, added the following label to clearly indicate that the holotype
is a fake: “This specimen is not the holotype of Pseudalmenus chlorinda
barringtonensis Waterhouse, 1928. It is a fake, most likely P. chlorinda chloris
Waterhouse & Lyell, 1914 that has been painted with red paint to resemble
P. chlorinda barringtonensis. The original labels have been removed from the true
holotype and placed with this specimen.”
The true holotype is most likely specimen K199026 in the AM (Figs 4–6; see
Discussion). We have, therefore, added the following label to this specimen to
clearly indicate this supposition: “HOLOTYPE Pseudalmenus barringtonensis
stat. nov.” [on red card]; “This specimen is almost certainly the true holotype of
Pseudalmenus chlorinda barringtonensis Waterhouse, 1928 collected dead from
Edwards Hut, Barrington Tops, NSW on 30th October 1922 by J. Hopson. The
specimen is part of the C. Wyatt Theft Collection, has a ctitious label, and has
been repaired with glue.”
Wording on the label “HOLOTYPE Pseudalmenus barringtonensis stat. nov.”
was a mistake; it should have been “HOLOTYPE Pseudalmenus chlorinda
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barringtonensis ♂”. This mistake has now been amended. The incorrect label
was added by the second author, but for reasons explained below Tennent et al.
(2024) wrongly assumed it was added by Wyatt.
Hypochrysops meleagris (Waterhouse, 1903)
As a result of detailed research into another lycaenid genus, Hypochrysops,
Tennent et al. (2024) investigated the type material of Miletus meleagris
Waterhouse, 1903, a junior synonym of Hypochryops euclides Miskin, 1889. The
holotype male of M. meleagris was thought to be in Museums Victoria in
Melbourne (MV), but when photographs of the MV specimen and labels were
obtained, it was seen that although the labels were without doubt those of
M. meleagris, the associated specimen was a typical Hypochrysops pythias
Felder & Felder, 1865, from the New Guinea mainland. Subsequently, the rst
author visited the Zoologische Staatssammlung in München, Germany and
examined a specimen of H. euclides with a label handwritten by Colin Wyatt
giving Darnley Island as the collecting locality. It was one of a series of
Hypochrysops specimens apparently collected by Wyatt on Darnley Island, none
of which occur there, all of which were therefore deliberately wrongly labelled.
It became clear that this specimen was almost certainly the missing M. meleagris
holotype. With the generous agreement of the Lepidoptera Curator in München,
the specimen was repatriated to Museums Victoria.
Discussion
In explaining these circumstances Tennent et al. (2024) compared a number of
thefts of butteries and other natural history specimens from museums, including
the Wyatt theft and label changing of what is now P. barringtonensis. The new
labels to be added to the stolen specimen (Braby and Eastwood, 2019: 536) were
not yet attached, and it was therefore assumed that the awed label
“HOLOTYPE Pseudalmenus barringtonensis stat. nov.”, had been added by
Wyatt. Part of the raison d'être in considering the label to have been added by
Wyatt was explained (Tennent et al. 2024: 50):
“Whilst the painting is supercially plausible, the fraud is not done cleverly, for
the ex-Wyatt putative holotype (Braby and Eastwood 2019: 532, Figs 4–6) has
what could be taken for a genuine red ‘holotype’ label were it not for the fact that
it states “Holotype Pseudalmenus barringtonensis stat. nov.”. The abbreviated
term “stat. nov.” (= “new status”), indicating a status dierent to the original
published combination is impossible when something is being described for the
rst time … there can be no “previous status”. Waterhouse described the buttery
as Pseudalmenus chlorinda barringtonensis, which would subsequently warrant
a revised status (i.e. as a distinct species: P. barringtonensis rather than a
subspecies of P. chlorinda Blanchard (Braby and Eastwood 2019), but obviously
not at the time it was described.”
The specimen in question is almost certainly the true holotype of Pseudalmenus
chlorinda barringtonensis Waterhouse, 1928, not of “Pseudalmenus
barringtonensis stat. nov.”. This mistake by Braby and Eastwood (2019) caused
51 (2): 99–102 (2024) 101

Tennent et al. (2024) to believe the label must have been written by Wyatt. This
was not the case.
This confusion in labelling may appear mildly convoluted and we could, of
course, have ignored the situation. But the literature is littered with confusing
data which can waste a great deal of time to understand and resolve subsequently.
We believe it is more appropriate to resolve the issue—caused by ourselves—
now, rather than cause someone else to waste their time decades hence.
References
BRABY, M.F. and EASTWOOD, R. 2019. Revised taxonomic status of Pseudalmenus
barringtonensis Waterhouse, 1928 stat. rev. (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae): uncovering Australia’s
greatest taxonomic fraud. Invertebrate Systematics 33: 530–543.
TENNENT, W,J., MÜLLER, C.M., HAUSMANN, A. and HINKLEY, S. 2024. From München to
Melbourne: repatriation of a buttery holotype stolen by the infamous Colin Wyatt almost 80 years
ago. Australian Entomologist 51 (1): 43–55.
102 Australian Entomologist