fossil flies in Antarctica

[John Grehan]

Without yet seeing the article, I would concur with Ken that, in general
principle, there would be nothing to suggest that the apparent absence of
the taxon in Antarctica represents a historical reality. For the ghost
moths (Hepialidae), for example, there are no fossil or living taxa in
Antarctica, yet one cannot say they were never there. Similarly, they are
absent from Madagascar, the Caribbean, much of West Africa, and the
lowlands of the southeastern United States but this does not mean they were
never there.

There is a common technique in the biogeographic and evolutionary
literature (and this may not apply to the Thompson article) to proclaim
that a new find (modern or fossil) as changing what was 'previously
thought' about the age or distribution of that taxon to make the discovery
more significant and noteworthy. One does see this kind of rhetoric quite
often in Nature and Science, but it is widespread in other journals as
well. It will be interesting to see what the empirical issue is in
Thompson's article.

John Grehan

At 01:55 AM 5/9/2003 +0000, Ken Kinman wrote:
>Dear All,
>      I see that Christian Thompson is co-author of a short piece in the
>latest issue of Nature.  I don't have a subscription, so could only read the
>first paragraph.  However, it contained a statement that I found puzzling:
>that there had been a longheld belief that flies of the clade Cyclorrhapha
>had never inhabited Antarctica.
>     What was the basis of that belief?  If the fossil record of
>Cyclorrhapha goes back into the Mesozoic, why wouldn't some members of that
>clade have lived in Antarctica in the late Mesozoic and Early Tertiary?
>Just curious.
>      ---- Thanks,
>                Ken
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*.
>http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus

Dr. John Grehan
Director of Science and Collections
Buffalo Museum of Science
1020 Humboldt Parkway
Buffalo, New York 14211-1293
Voice 716-896-5200 x372
Fax 716-897-6723
jgrehan at sciencebuff.org
http://www.sciencebuff.org/biogeography/Panbiogeography/Panbiogeography-Gate.htm
http://www.sciencebuff.org/HepialidaeGate.htm