Pieris mannii ssp. haroldi (Berber Southern Small White)

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Life cycle: Unknown. In particular, we do not know the spring and possible autumn generations.

Habitat: WYATT names the locus typicus as 'Taghzeft Pass, south side, Middle Atlas, 1900 m'. According to Michelin map 696 (Carte routière et touristique, Morocco), this pass is now called Tizi-Tarhzeft. It connects the P 21 road with the P 20 about 8 km east of the Aguelmame de Sidi-Ali. It branches off from the P 21 46 km south of Azrou to the east (road no. 3385) and then reaches the P 20 about 6 km west-southwest of Taouerda.

P. mannii haroldi WYATT has so far only been known from Morocco. It has hardly been found since the 1970s. The last known evidence dates from July 1973. According to TARRIER (1998), P. mannii haroldi WYATT has not been found in the atlas for decades and may be extinct.

Biology: Absolutely nothing is known about the biology. There is no information about the first stages, development, ecology or caterpillar food plants.

www.euroleps.ch/seiten/s_art.php?art=pier_mannii_haroldi&id=main01

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Der Karstweißling Pieris mannii (Mayer, 1851) Systematik, Verbreitung, Biologie (Lepidoptera, Pieridae).

Oberthür (1925b) was the first to mention the occurrence of Pieris mannii Mayer on the lakeshore near Sidi-Ali at the foot of the Aguelmane in the Middle Atlas, where it was caught by Powell in 1924.

It was also found in the same place on 16 July 1933 by Rungs (1944) among numerous Pieris rapae L. In 1949 and 1950, Wyatt (1952) spent several months studying the butterfly fauna of the Middle and High Atlas and met Harold Powell, who made his library available to him and showed him good places to catch them.

Wyatt found a large series of a Pieris mannii form that differed from the forms of southern Spain and France and which he therefore newly and validly described as a new subspecies under the name ssp. haroldi in honour of Powell. What is also interesting in this new description is the fact that, to our knowledge, Wyatt was the first to mention the occurrence of Pieris mannii Mayer in southern Spain. Toulgoet (1966) found the species on 17 July 1949 in the valley of the Oud Tadmamt near Sidi Fares at an altitude of 1900 m. De Freina (1975) mentions finds of the subspecies in the High Atlas: on 12 July 1973 at 2200 m in the Toubkal massif and on 14 July on the Tizi-n-Tichka pass at 2000 m.

This information later turns out to be a misidentification and is corrected in Tennent (1998: 8). In 1973, Eitschberger & Steiniger described the subspecies from southern Spain as ssp. roberti and differentiated it from ssp. haroldi Wyatt on the basis of different colouring and wing markings. In his detailed treatise on the lepidopteran fauna of Morocco, Tarrier (1998) assumes that P. m. haroldi Wyatt is extinct. Tennent (1998) is considered an expert on the butterfly fauna of northwest Africa. In his work "Butterflies of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia" he too cannot report any finds of P. mannii haroldi Wyatt. Unfortunately, instead of ssp. haroldi Wyatt, he depicts specimens of ssp. alpigena Verity from northeast Spain. Other authors (I. c.) only mention the occurrence of the species in Morocco, but do not provide any further details. The available literature provides no information on the possible existence of a spring or autumn generation or information on the biology of this interesting subspecies.

www.zobodat.at/pdf/Neue-Entomologische-Nachrichten_45_0001-0217.pdf

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A commercial interest in systematics, or a systematic interest in commerce? The Moroccan butterfly names of M. R. Tarrier.

Moroccan butterfly names recently raised by M. R. Tarrier (1996, 1998c) are critically appraised. Rarity status allocated to Moroccan butterflies (Tarrier, 1998a) is shown to be highly subjective and closely correlated to prices in a commercial butterfly price list (Tarrier, [1997b]). It is suggested that the basis on which names have been raised and on which calls for the protection of butterfly habitats have been made, represent a cynical attempt to promote commercial butterfly sales. It is further suggested that journal editors must bear responsibility for facilitating publication of such material. The names amelnorum, antiatlasicus, arahoui, edithae, fairuzae and megalatlasica are synonymised with existing names.

www.zobodat.at/pdf/Nota-lepidopterologica_22_0048-0057.pdf

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Tarrier, M. (2020): The Pieridae of Morocco (Rif, Oriental Region, Central Plateau, Middle Atlas, High Atlas, Anti-Atlas, Sahara). An updated and annotated monography.

Only representive of this species on the African continent, the Moroccan race was named in 1950 by C. Wyatt on a long series of specimens from Tizi-Taghzeft, but the discovery was actually made by H. Powell in 1924 (Rungs, 1954) when he captured the first specimen around Lake Sidi-Ali, whose entire perimeter was wooded at the time. Until the diagnosis made by Wyatt, the Atlas ssp. of this Pierid had been named after its European summer form, i.e. rossii Stefanelli, 1900.

Very few additional specimens were captured in subsequent years by the occasional lepidopterist (among others Ch. Rungs, G. Barrague, A. Mokhles. J-C Weiss and J. Gallet), and the last two specimens by myself, almost by accident, in August 1999, on the shores of the same lake, and after some fruitless efforts to try and find either the topo-typical population around Tizi-Taghzeft, or other possible segregate population in appropriate habitats around the same area.

Pieris manni is therefore considered extinct in Morocco, a conclusion not drawn in haste, considering that the deplorable state of this region earned its nickname of "cedar cemetery" with an ongoing process of aridification advancing at alarming rates under combined effect of multiple, mostly anthropogenic factors. These include erroneous forest management techniques carried out for decades leading to the disappearance of Cedar forests, as well as intensive overgrazing, destroying all physicochemical properties of the soil, and wiping out all loca, and particularly botanical, biodiversity. The decline of the Cedar forest did not occur by chance.

www.calameo.com/read/005869828ec1f9ecf4561