Butterflies of the South Pacific

The South Pacific is a vast expanse of ocean with tiny scattered islands and island groups. From Kiribati, Tuvalu, and Fiji to the west, to the far-flung Marquesas and Austral Islands in French Polynesia to the east, this book surveys (and discovers) the butterfly inhabitants of these tropical islands. For completeness, Hawai'i to the north - where there are many fewer islands in an otherwise empty ocean - is included. To the south and with a much larger land area, lies temperate New Zealand, with a further string of islands reaching into sub-Antarctic waters. It is easy to misjudge butterflies as fragile flying insects, but their distribution across a wild and expansive Pacific Ocean proves otherwise. Long ago, by flight, they colonized isolated and tiny atolls and they continue to claim new territory. Additionally, they came by land bridges when sea levels were lower, to mark out their distribution and perhaps establish new species. More recently, people have made their way into the