The Butterflies of Southern California, (Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Science Series)

With illustration of the life histories of many of our butterflies by C. M. Dammers (most published for the first time) and John A. Comstock, this present book will be especially valuable to the student in understanding the biology and adaptation of the species and subspecies found in southern California. We would like to mention several specific points for the benefit of those who will be using this book: 1. In the color-plates figure caption, the data on brief locality labels have been amplified by adding the county names or other qualifying information to enable future workers to locate the geographic sources of these specimens. 2. The principle mountain ranges of southern California, commonly referred to in the text, are shown in Figure 1. 3. The Life Zone concept is used to describe distributions of butterflies largely restricted to a characteristic zone, aside from mentioning typical plant associations in each account of a butterfly species. 4. We have included authors' names for all food-plants listed. Note that botanists use a slightly different system of author citations than entomologists. 5. The arrangement of species reflects our preferences and ideas regarding phylogenetic relationships. 6. Finally, it should be stated that this book incorporates the latest data available to us through March, 1973.