184 
Psyche 
[June 
Reliquia santamarta Ackery is an unusual Pierine of uncertain 
affinities which is known only from above 3500 m in the Sierra 
Nevada de Santa Marta of northeastern Colombia. It was dis- 
covered in 1971 and described four years later (Ackery, 1975). 
Phenotypically, the adult closely resembles high-altitude and -lati- 
tude members of the Holarctic Pieris callidice complex (figs. 1, 2) 
and is unlike the distinctive Andean montane and alpine Pierines 
( Tatochila , Phulia, Piercolias). In those genera the submarginal 
black chevrons on the hindwing above and below point outward 
in the interspaces. In Holarctic Pieris and in R. santamarta they 
point inward. Morphologically R. santamarta is also close to Pieris, 
and indeed would be included therein under the traditional broad 
concept of the genus, which is beginning to break down (Kudrna, 
1974). These facts suggest that R. santamarta might represent a 
relict of a Holarctic stock of the P. callidice complex which in- 
vaded northern South America during a cold period, presumably 
in the Pleistocene. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, although 
only 62 km from the Serrania de Valledupar which connects to the 
northern Andes, shows a very high degree of faunal and floral 
endemism. The entomologist who knows it best, Michael Adams, 
is convinced (1973, 1975, and personal communications) that its 
butterfly fauna had not begun differentiating before the eastern 
Andean orogeny — thus precisely contradicting the hypothesis of 
Todd and Carriker (1922) of an eastern Andean origin for the 
Sierran alpine avifauna — and that certain groups speciated and 
underwent character- and altitudinal displacement in the Pleisto- 
cene. A.S. Weston (personal communication) has noted a floristic 
connection between the Sierran paramos and those of Costa Rica. 
At least one butterfly, Nathalis iole Boisduval (Pieridae, Coliadinae) 
is perhaps a Nearctic relict in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. 
R. santamarta has been recorded from both dry seasons, the 
“verano” (“summer”; actually trade-wind season) in December- 
March and the shorter and less reliable “veranillo” in July — these 
being the only times of the year when weather conditions in the 
high Sierra would make butterfly collecting feasible. No pheno- 
typic differences are apparent among the putative broods. This is 
perhaps not surprising. Pierines in middle latitudes respond phe- 
notypically to daylength, but the Sierra lies at a latitude of 10°44' 
N, and the longest and shortest days of the year there differ in 
length by only about 70 minutes. The literature is devoid of photo- 
