New Butterfly Species Named after Andrew Berry
Andrew Berry examines butterflies in the Museum of Comparative Zoology collections. Courtesy of Stephanie Mitchell, Harvard Staff Photographer
The small brown butterfly, Euptychia andrewberryi, spent more than 150 years hidden in museum drawers before researchers realized it was a species unknown to science. For Andrew Berry, Lecturer in OEB, the discovery represents a deeply personal connection to Alfred Russel Wallace, whom Berry has studied for decades.
“I’m absolutely thrilled, sad though it is to be so pathetically vain about having a little brown butterfly named after you,” Berry said from his office, beside a colorful model of his namesake species.
The butterfly’s story begins in 1848, when Wallace, a Welsh-born naturalist, and his colleague Henry Walter Bates set sail for the Amazon to collect insects and other species. Four years later, disaster struck: Wallace’s homeward ship caught fire in the Atlantic, destroying nearly all his specimens. After 10 days adrift, he was rescued—devastated but alive. Fortunately, a few crates shipped home earlier survived, among them several butterflies from Brazil.
Wallace would later co-discover the theory of evolution by natural selection with Charles Darwin in 1858, though history largely credited Darwin. Wallace went on to found the field of biogeography and identify the ecological boundary now known as the Wallace Line, distinguishing Asian from Australasian fauna.
Today, Shinichi Nakahara, an entomologist and research associate at the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ), spent a decade studying Euptychia, a genus of South and Central American butterflies. While examining specimens collected by Wallace and Bates in London’s Natural History Museum, he realized that five butterflies labeled as the pitch brown black-eyed satyr (Euptychia picea) were anatomically distinct — a new species hidden in plain sight.
When it came time to name it, Nakahara need not look farther for inspiration than Berry, who had played a key role in reviving scholarly attention to Wallace.
Berry’s fascination began decades earlier, when he was assigned to write about Wallace for the London Review of Books. “You can’t read Wallace and not fall in love with him,” Berry said. “There’s the underdog appeal — here’s the guy who co-discovered evolution, yet he basically dropped off the map.”
“Andrew is very good at explaining the importance of these early naturalists,” said Nakahara. “He brings Wallace to life.”