Butterflies of the Atlantic Islands: one of Darwin’s missed opportunities

Speaker: Martin Davies, Naturalist and Wildlife tour leader
Series: Cambridge Natural History Society

Some of the Atlantic Islands (such as the Canary Islands, Madeira and the Azores) show remarkable rates of endemism in their fauna and flora. In this talk, Martin Davies will illustrate this with reference to their butterfly populations. Considering these archipelagos in the wider context of the many groups of islands scattered throughout the tropical, sub-tropical and even the temperate and polar Atlantic from Iceland to South Georgia also raises some interesting questions regarding the patterns, timelines and origins of such endemism - questions that Darwin himself might well have pondered, had his travel plans worked out differently!