Lepidoptera Recorded From the Islands of Western Lake Erie, With a Brief Account of Geology and Flora

A list of Lepidoptera from the islands of western Lake Erie is presented along with a brief account of the geology, flora, and human activities in the area. The checklist contains 169 species representing 27 families. Suggestions are made for the improvement of this preliminary checklist as well as for future research. Prompted by the absence of any previous survey, we compiled a list of Lepidoptera found on the western Lake Erie islands. Lepidopterans included in this list were collected from the five largest of the 22 western Lake Erie islands situated between the Catawba-Marblehead shore of Ohio and Point Pelee in Ontario (Fig. I). The islands range in size from over 4,000 ha (PeIee) to about 800 m2 (Little Chicken Is.). The 5 largest islands are South Bass, Middle Bass, and North Bass (Ottawa Co., Ohio), Kelleys (Erie Co., Ohio) and PeIee (Ontario, Canada). Gibraltar Is. (about 5 ha.) was also surveyed because of its convenient laboratory facilities. Geological formation f the islands resulted from a unique combination of sedimentary uplifting plus glacial and water erosion. Two types of sediments constitute the bedrock of the islands: limestone composed entirely of calcium carbonate, and dolomite, a magne­ sium-bearing form of limestone. This limestone and dolomite bedrock originated during the Paleozoic Era when the area was covered by a wann, broad, shallow sea. Erosion commenced about 200 million years B.P. when the Paleozoic sea drained permanently, creating two cuestas whose crests create the islands (Forsyth 1988). The resistant rocks forming the two cuestas are the Columbus Limestone of Devonian age (about 350 million years old) and the Put-in-Bay Dolomite of Silurian age (about 400 million years old) (Carman 1946). The eastern belt of islands (Kelleys, Middle, and Pelee) represents the emerged summits of the Columbus Limestone cuesta, which also includes the Marblehead and Castalia areas on the Ohio mainland. The western belt of islands, the summits of the Put-in-Bay Dolomite cuesta, are South, Middle and North Bass. Rattlesnake, Green, Ballast, Lost Ballast, Gibraltar, Mouse, Starve, Hen and the Chickens, as well as Catawba "Island", Ohio (Carman 1946, Core 1948). (Catawba Island has been a peninsula throughout historic times and is now broadly connected to the Ohio mainland via filled marsh and vehicular causeways,) Erosion ultimately formed valleys which provided tracks for the advancement of 'Department of Entomology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. 2Department of Entomology, The Ohio State University, Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, Wooster, OH 44691. 3Department of Entomology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210. Address correspondence to D.l. R 1 Nault et al.: Lepidoptera Recorded From the Islands of Western Lake Erie, With Published by ValpoScholar, 1989 -Il2 THE GREAT LAKES ENTOMOLOGIST Vol. 22, No.3 Middle Horth Sister , ­ Harbour " cast . , . Sister. LAKE -" . Big Hen ERIE . ~~icke~ . li,fle ~. ,. Chicken NodI, . " . Bas'll . ~ Middle. SU9Q~BQSS . Rottle.n. ke~ . \f ,Bolla. &",. -~~~~~~_____________~_-:t4~~~___________________________ Glb'. ~ Los! B.llo. UHITED STATESr--r_,--. __ ----;