geography
Puzzling with shells and geography
14-06-2010 13:45
For a paper in
preparation about Colombian species, Francisco
Borrero and I have been puzzling with some
localities. Earlier, I posted on this topic
here.
This time the hunt was for the type locality
of Plekocheilus
taquinensis (Pfeiffer, 1855), a place called
Taquina which is not in the gazetteers we consulted.
All we knew was that Taquina is located somewhere in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, at around 2700 m. We also knew that the British conchologist Tom Pain collected the species “in the vicinity of the type locality” in 1939 (Crowley & Pain, 1958).
The solution came when we found two sources with the help of other disciplines. The first was Todd & Carriker’s 1922 paper on birds of the area; they have a map which shows several Indian villages in the north-eastern part of the Sierra. This was confirmed by a geographical study by Simmons (1981).
Another puzzling species was Plekocheilus couturesi (Ancey, 1900), described from Bolivia. The type has recently been figured by Wood & Gallichan (2008). Since the shell was unlike the few Bolivian Plekocheilus species, but more resembled some forms from Colombia, I decided to ask for additional pictures to the National Museum of Wales. When I received these photographs, it appeared that the sculpture of the shells was peculiar and similar to that on shells we have from the Tatamá National Park in the Riseralda/Chocó area. Which led us to believe that this taxon was actually a Colombian and not a Bolivian species.
We first tried to trace the source of the shell, collected by G. Coutures. However, we couldn’t find any data on this person and his itinerary in South America. Puzzling...
The story became more complicated, when we received pictures of the type material of P. taquinensis, showing that this species has a similar sculpture. Now we had two different sources for the type locality of couturesi, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in the northern part and the Cordillera Occidental in the western part of Colombia. Very puzzling... However, the shell shape of couturesi is slightly dissimilar to the shells of these two localities, which are both at high altitudes (2700-3600 m).
It then occurred to Francisco that “Bolivia” might not refer to a country, but to a locality of the same name. Could we find such a locality at an appropriate elevation? To my surprise, the GNS gazetteer gave 10 places named Bolivia in various departments of Colombia. Then it was only a matter of scoring out, to be left with a single locality that seems the most likely candidate. It is in the western part of Tolima on the border with Valle del Cauca.
Puzzling with shells and geography, this time with a happy ending...
References:
Crowley, T.E. & Pain, T., 1958. On an unfigured species of Plekocheilus (Eurytus). - Journal of Conchology 24: 234-235.
Simmons, F.A.A., 1981. On the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and its watershed. - Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society 12: 717-718.
Todd, W.E.C. & Carriker, M.A. jr, 1922. The birds of the Santa Marta region of Colombia: A study in altitudinal distribution. - Annals of the Carnegie Museum 14: 3-583.
Wood, H. & Gallichan, J., 2008. The new molluscan names of César-Marie-Felix Ancey, including illustrated type material from the National Museum of Wales. Studies in Biodiversity and Systematics of Terrestrial Organisms from the National Museum of Wales. Biotir Reports 3: i-vi, 1-162.
All we knew was that Taquina is located somewhere in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, at around 2700 m. We also knew that the British conchologist Tom Pain collected the species “in the vicinity of the type locality” in 1939 (Crowley & Pain, 1958).
The solution came when we found two sources with the help of other disciplines. The first was Todd & Carriker’s 1922 paper on birds of the area; they have a map which shows several Indian villages in the north-eastern part of the Sierra. This was confirmed by a geographical study by Simmons (1981).
Another puzzling species was Plekocheilus couturesi (Ancey, 1900), described from Bolivia. The type has recently been figured by Wood & Gallichan (2008). Since the shell was unlike the few Bolivian Plekocheilus species, but more resembled some forms from Colombia, I decided to ask for additional pictures to the National Museum of Wales. When I received these photographs, it appeared that the sculpture of the shells was peculiar and similar to that on shells we have from the Tatamá National Park in the Riseralda/Chocó area. Which led us to believe that this taxon was actually a Colombian and not a Bolivian species.
We first tried to trace the source of the shell, collected by G. Coutures. However, we couldn’t find any data on this person and his itinerary in South America. Puzzling...
The story became more complicated, when we received pictures of the type material of P. taquinensis, showing that this species has a similar sculpture. Now we had two different sources for the type locality of couturesi, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in the northern part and the Cordillera Occidental in the western part of Colombia. Very puzzling... However, the shell shape of couturesi is slightly dissimilar to the shells of these two localities, which are both at high altitudes (2700-3600 m).
It then occurred to Francisco that “Bolivia” might not refer to a country, but to a locality of the same name. Could we find such a locality at an appropriate elevation? To my surprise, the GNS gazetteer gave 10 places named Bolivia in various departments of Colombia. Then it was only a matter of scoring out, to be left with a single locality that seems the most likely candidate. It is in the western part of Tolima on the border with Valle del Cauca.
Puzzling with shells and geography, this time with a happy ending...
References:
Crowley, T.E. & Pain, T., 1958. On an unfigured species of Plekocheilus (Eurytus). - Journal of Conchology 24: 234-235.
Simmons, F.A.A., 1981. On the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and its watershed. - Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society 12: 717-718.
Todd, W.E.C. & Carriker, M.A. jr, 1922. The birds of the Santa Marta region of Colombia: A study in altitudinal distribution. - Annals of the Carnegie Museum 14: 3-583.
Wood, H. & Gallichan, J., 2008. The new molluscan names of César-Marie-Felix Ancey, including illustrated type material from the National Museum of Wales. Studies in Biodiversity and Systematics of Terrestrial Organisms from the National Museum of Wales. Biotir Reports 3: i-vi, 1-162.
Geo and GIS tools, again
10-05-2010 07:07
There are lots of handy
tools out there and when you trawl the internet long
enough you might find a good hit now and then. Some
people are sharing generously their tricks with
others and do this very focussed. Bob Mesibov, who has published
before on
the use of Google Maps, is one of them.
“I've previously posted here about the usefulness of Google Maps as a field tool and a kind of layman's GIS. There are a couple of new features and accessories worth noting. What follows is an edited version of a short contribution for Banksia (http://www.sasb.org.au/banksia.html), the newsletter of the Society of Australian Systematic Biologists.
(1) Plotting locality data
In the last Banksia I described how to plot a set of locations in Google Maps by home-crafting a KML file to sit on a Web server. There's an easier way to get the KML, although there could be a data security issue. A free Web service hosted by BatchGeo (http://www.batchgeo.com/) allows you to upload a whole spreadsheet full of locations and associated data. The locations are then plotted on Google Maps on BatchGeo's website. An option on the map is to save the data to a KML.
(2) Finding lat/longs
On Google Earth, you can get the lat/long of a point by hovering the cursor over it. The lat/long appears in the status bar at the bottom of the screen (or grid reference if UTM is selected in Google Earth Options).
Google Maps doesn't have this feature, but you can get nearly the same thing by first clicking on the tiny green lab flask at the top right of the Google Maps window, just to the left of the 'Help' and 'Sign In' links. A new window will appear, displaying the apps under development at Google Maps Labs. The two apps we're interested in are Lat/Lng Tool Tip and Lat/Lng Marker. If you enable the Tool Tip and save changes, Google Maps will now display the lat/long of the point under the cursor, in decimal degrees.
The Lat/Lng Marker works this way: hover the cursor over a spot, then right-click. At the bottom of the context menu is 'Drop Lat/Lng Marker'. Choose this, and a marker appears at the spot, again with lat/long in decimal degrees.
(3) Travel between localities
One of the most useful features of Google Maps is its ability to give you directions by road ('Get Directions'), with distances for each road segment travelled and an overall approximate travelling time. This feature can also be used with destinations specified by lat/long. Suppose you're in your office. Find the office on Google Maps and use the Lat/Lng Marker to get your lat/long. Enter the coordinates as starting place in the Get Directions box (A). Want to visit a locality for a museum specimen? Enter the locality as a lat/long in the destination box (B). Click the 'Get Directions' button and Google Maps plots a route for you from office to locality. You can add additional destinations and extend the route.
If you have a Google account, you can set up 'permanent' placemarks using My Maps, but the features described above can be used without a login.”.
Some people also have the need to show the errors in their data. If you dare to look at unexpected places, in this case spotters of military planes, you might find solutions you possibly hadn’t thought of. A KML generator Excel spreadsheet is at the bottom of this link. Although you may need to give it a thought first...
“It depends how you want to do it. You can either have points plotted as error circles, or points and their error circles as separate KML files.
The second is easier to do but less satisfying. Geo Utilities has an online tool for producing buffers around points; it's well-described at http://freegeographytools.com/2007/online-google-earth-utilities-for-buffering-and-area-calculations Note that the new KML file for the buffer circles has a fixed 'radius' (it's actually a bunch of points on the diameter). If you have a range of errors in your locality data set, that set has to be broken into its different error values. It should be possible to combine the KML files into a single 'MultiGeometry' file but I haven't tried it.
The first would be handy. You'd have a spreadsheet with separate fields for lat, long and error. You'd feed this to a KML generator, and it would produce placemarked circles with radius based on the value in the error field. I say 'would be handy' because I haven't seen this yet. Anyone?
There are of course GIS tools for doing this off the Web, e.g. http://www.spatialecology.com/htools/buffer.php For my own, humble GIS needs I run the venerable ArcView 3.2 (through Wine under Linux, works great). In AV3.2 I can show different size circles for different error values simply by displaying according to 'Unique Value' in the error field (e.g. 25, 50, 100, etc metres) in my attribute table, then adjusting the symbol size and colour to my liking.”
For the handling of errors in localities, see also the BioGeomanger workbench, which is highly interactive. You can change the radius of the error circle by dragging the yellow balloon.
Thanks Bob, for sharing the tools!
“I've previously posted here about the usefulness of Google Maps as a field tool and a kind of layman's GIS. There are a couple of new features and accessories worth noting. What follows is an edited version of a short contribution for Banksia (http://www.sasb.org.au/banksia.html), the newsletter of the Society of Australian Systematic Biologists.
(1) Plotting locality data
In the last Banksia I described how to plot a set of locations in Google Maps by home-crafting a KML file to sit on a Web server. There's an easier way to get the KML, although there could be a data security issue. A free Web service hosted by BatchGeo (http://www.batchgeo.com/) allows you to upload a whole spreadsheet full of locations and associated data. The locations are then plotted on Google Maps on BatchGeo's website. An option on the map is to save the data to a KML.
(2) Finding lat/longs
On Google Earth, you can get the lat/long of a point by hovering the cursor over it. The lat/long appears in the status bar at the bottom of the screen (or grid reference if UTM is selected in Google Earth Options).
Google Maps doesn't have this feature, but you can get nearly the same thing by first clicking on the tiny green lab flask at the top right of the Google Maps window, just to the left of the 'Help' and 'Sign In' links. A new window will appear, displaying the apps under development at Google Maps Labs. The two apps we're interested in are Lat/Lng Tool Tip and Lat/Lng Marker. If you enable the Tool Tip and save changes, Google Maps will now display the lat/long of the point under the cursor, in decimal degrees.
The Lat/Lng Marker works this way: hover the cursor over a spot, then right-click. At the bottom of the context menu is 'Drop Lat/Lng Marker'. Choose this, and a marker appears at the spot, again with lat/long in decimal degrees.
(3) Travel between localities
One of the most useful features of Google Maps is its ability to give you directions by road ('Get Directions'), with distances for each road segment travelled and an overall approximate travelling time. This feature can also be used with destinations specified by lat/long. Suppose you're in your office. Find the office on Google Maps and use the Lat/Lng Marker to get your lat/long. Enter the coordinates as starting place in the Get Directions box (A). Want to visit a locality for a museum specimen? Enter the locality as a lat/long in the destination box (B). Click the 'Get Directions' button and Google Maps plots a route for you from office to locality. You can add additional destinations and extend the route.
If you have a Google account, you can set up 'permanent' placemarks using My Maps, but the features described above can be used without a login.”.
Some people also have the need to show the errors in their data. If you dare to look at unexpected places, in this case spotters of military planes, you might find solutions you possibly hadn’t thought of. A KML generator Excel spreadsheet is at the bottom of this link. Although you may need to give it a thought first...
“It depends how you want to do it. You can either have points plotted as error circles, or points and their error circles as separate KML files.
The second is easier to do but less satisfying. Geo Utilities has an online tool for producing buffers around points; it's well-described at http://freegeographytools.com/2007/online-google-earth-utilities-for-buffering-and-area-calculations Note that the new KML file for the buffer circles has a fixed 'radius' (it's actually a bunch of points on the diameter). If you have a range of errors in your locality data set, that set has to be broken into its different error values. It should be possible to combine the KML files into a single 'MultiGeometry' file but I haven't tried it.
The first would be handy. You'd have a spreadsheet with separate fields for lat, long and error. You'd feed this to a KML generator, and it would produce placemarked circles with radius based on the value in the error field. I say 'would be handy' because I haven't seen this yet. Anyone?
There are of course GIS tools for doing this off the Web, e.g. http://www.spatialecology.com/htools/buffer.php For my own, humble GIS needs I run the venerable ArcView 3.2 (through Wine under Linux, works great). In AV3.2 I can show different size circles for different error values simply by displaying according to 'Unique Value' in the error field (e.g. 25, 50, 100, etc metres) in my attribute table, then adjusting the symbol size and colour to my liking.”
For the handling of errors in localities, see also the BioGeomanger workbench, which is highly interactive. You can change the radius of the error circle by dragging the yellow balloon.
Thanks Bob, for sharing the tools!
The Andes
19-07-2008 08:16
Searching the web I came across some specialized
websites that provide access to a further array of
sources. The EvoAndes site is one of them, providing
an overview of different disciplines. Unfortunately
it doesn't seem to be updated anymore and I found
various "dead links".
One of the interesting links that did work, was on páramos in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. It has a nice set of pictures and references to literature. Another one leads to a specialist site of blueberries (Ericaceae). More lightly is the site on Peruvian orchids, with beautiful photographs. Very nice pictures both of the landscape and of plants in the Andes of Mérida, can be found in the image gallery of the Programa Andes Tropicales.
Unfortunately, I cannot show any pictures from these sites due to copyrights.
One of the interesting links that did work, was on páramos in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. It has a nice set of pictures and references to literature. Another one leads to a specialist site of blueberries (Ericaceae). More lightly is the site on Peruvian orchids, with beautiful photographs. Very nice pictures both of the landscape and of plants in the Andes of Mérida, can be found in the image gallery of the Programa Andes Tropicales.
Unfortunately, I cannot show any pictures from these sites due to copyrights.
More on old maps
01-04-2008 08:13
While I was looking for old maps indicating the
province of Orinoco in Venezuela, I came across some
other maps which quite interesting show the political
changes in South America. Since you never know where
these maps will end up and for how long they will be
displayed on the internet I copy them here as future
reference for researchers.
South America. 1841 (published 1846). Authors: T.G. Bradford & S.G. Goodrich. Boston. (Source: antique-atlas)
Carta de la Republica de Colombia. 1840. Author: A. Codazzi (Source: David Rumsey).
Carta del Departamento del Orinoco o de Maturin. 1827. Author: J.M. Restrepo (Source: David Rumsey).
Carta del Canton de Angostura de la Provincia de Guayana. 1840. Authour: A. Codazzi (Source: David Rumsey).
Mapa de los tres Departamentos Venezuela, Cundinamarca y Ecuador que formaron la Republica de Colombia, para servir a la historia de las campanas de la guerra de independencia en los años de 1821, 1822 y 1823. 1840. Author: A. Codazzi (Source: David Rumsey).
Finally one more map on Venezuela, with two versions, one from the early 19th c. and one from the mid-1800's. The latter is the period that most shell collections were made, so I have zoomed in on some details.
Mapa politico de Venezuela antes de la Revolución de 1810. Mapa politico de Venezuela en 1840. 1840. Author: A. Codazzi (Source: David Rumsey).
South America. 1841 (published 1846). Authors: T.G. Bradford & S.G. Goodrich. Boston. (Source: antique-atlas)
Carta de la Republica de Colombia. 1840. Author: A. Codazzi (Source: David Rumsey).
Carta del Departamento del Orinoco o de Maturin. 1827. Author: J.M. Restrepo (Source: David Rumsey).
Carta del Canton de Angostura de la Provincia de Guayana. 1840. Authour: A. Codazzi (Source: David Rumsey).
Mapa de los tres Departamentos Venezuela, Cundinamarca y Ecuador que formaron la Republica de Colombia, para servir a la historia de las campanas de la guerra de independencia en los años de 1821, 1822 y 1823. 1840. Author: A. Codazzi (Source: David Rumsey).
Finally one more map on Venezuela, with two versions, one from the early 19th c. and one from the mid-1800's. The latter is the period that most shell collections were made, so I have zoomed in on some details.
Mapa politico de Venezuela antes de la Revolución de 1810. Mapa politico de Venezuela en 1840. 1840. Author: A. Codazzi (Source: David Rumsey).
Old maps never die
31-03-2008 10:07
Once again an old map shed light on the type locality
of a species described in the early 19th century.
This time I was wondering where "Reipublicae
Venezuela, Provinciae Cumana, juxta vicum Caripe, in
vicinitate cavernae Guacharo" could be located. It is
the home of several species described by Jonas and
Nyst.
In modern Venezuela administrative boundaries have changed and a Province Cumaná no longer exist (subdivisions in this country are called Estado or State). The place Caripe can still be located and there is even a 'Caripe Viejo', referring to an old place with that name. This could probably indicate the place I was looking for; it is in Estado Monagas. But still I was curious about the extent of the former province of Cumaná. A quick search on the net revealed the following map:
Map of Provincia de Cumana.
Author: Agustin Codazzi, 1840. Lith. Thierry frères, Caracas. (Source: davidrumsey.com)
Caripe is shown in the mountaneous part of the province and undoubtedly the cave was near that place.
In modern Venezuela administrative boundaries have changed and a Province Cumaná no longer exist (subdivisions in this country are called Estado or State). The place Caripe can still be located and there is even a 'Caripe Viejo', referring to an old place with that name. This could probably indicate the place I was looking for; it is in Estado Monagas. But still I was curious about the extent of the former province of Cumaná. A quick search on the net revealed the following map:
Map of Provincia de Cumana.
Author: Agustin Codazzi, 1840. Lith. Thierry frères, Caracas. (Source: davidrumsey.com)
Caripe is shown in the mountaneous part of the province and undoubtedly the cave was near that place.
New Grenada
27-11-2007 09:44
Working on the
Colombian checklist reveals some well-known puzzles
about old localities who have not been traced again.
In fact, the denomination of the area as "New
Grenada" is somewhat of a puzzle, as the meaning of
that terminology has shifted over time.
Just out of curiosity, I searched for pictures on "New Grenada" in Google. I found a few, and the shift in what has to be called "New Grenada" is clearly illustrated in the following time-series.
Map of New Grenada
Author: John Pilkerton, 1811. Scale 1:3,400,000. Publshers: Cadell & Davies; Longman, Hurst, Rees, Ome & Brown, London
Map of the Kingdom of New Grenada
Author: Hall Sidney, 1827. Scale 1:5,700,000. Publisher: Caddell, London.
Map of Venezuela, New Grenada & Equador
Author: Henny Tanner, 1836. Scale 1:6,969,600. Publisher: H.S. Tanner, Philadelphia
The first map shows that New Grenada at one time reached the borders of the Río Marañon, now in the territory of Perú. The last map is especially interesting, since it depicts the situation at the time from which many type material originate, that can still be found in museum collections. What struck me is the very different limitation of the 'Provinces" or "Departments". Colombia consisted in the mid-19th century of four parts: Cauca, Cundinamarca, Magdalena and Boyacá. Their geographical limits are, however, rather different from their current, being far more extensive. When interpreting old locality labels this knowledge can be very helpful to pinpoint certain places, which might not be located where one would expect them with today's map in front.
Just an example of some puzzles that I consider solved, where some geographical knowledge and modern facilities go hand in hand. One of the collectors who travelled extensively through Colombia at that time was Thomas Bland (1809-1885). Many of his collected material was studied by Pilsbry during his work for the Manual of Conchology. But quite often modern authors may be puzzled about some of the places that were visited by Bland.
There were three Drymaeus species with localities originating from Bland that, at first, I was unable to locate. "Between Salamina and Cabuyal, west of Ervé" was one of them, a locality reported for D. bogotensis (Pfeiffer). I looked up Ervé in the GNS gazetteer but nothing turned up. On the other hand, Salamina and Cabuyal - though not sounding like common names - turned up many times from different parts of Colombia. I decided to leave it and went on with my revision.
Another puzzling locality was "near Santa Ana", type locality of D. decoratus goniobasis Pilsbry, based on material collected by Bland. When I looked up "Santa Ana" in the gazetteer, many places of that name turned up from all over the country.
Finally, I came to D. geometricus (Pfeiffer), for which Pilsbry had another locality from Bland: "Forests in the mountains below Ervé, on the road to Santa Ana". I'm unaware if there has anything been published about the journeys of Bland in Colombia, but now I had three parts of a puzzle and I decided to find some solution. First the place "Ervé". This is a highly unusual spelling in Spanish, so it could be phonetical. I decided to look for "erve" in the GNS database, but not with "starts with" option enabled, but with the "contains" option instead. It turned up 6 names, of which 3 could be skipped right away. I ended up with "Páramo de Herveo" and two variants of the populated place "Herveo", all at or very close to 05° 05' 00" N 075° 10' 00" W, which is in Dept. Tolima. The first puzzle bit was in place.
The next step was to find Santa Ana, which could not be far away. When I scrutinized the list of names I did not find a place with a modern name that seemed logical to me. Then I was struck by the name Falán in the list, with a variant name Santa Ana, and located 25 km ENE of Herveo. That seemed logical to me, both places are in the region of Fresno in the upper Magdalena valley, from which the species have been reported.
Then finally Salamina and Cabuyal. With the location of Herveo in mind I looked through all the records for these names in the GNS gazetteer. Salamina is in Dept. Caldas, nearly 50 km NW of Herveo. And there is a "Quebrada Cabuyal" in Tolima, 60 km SE of Herveo. Both places are marked with red in the map below, while the three localties of the Drymaeus species mentioned are marked with yellow. Three species finally found their home.
Just out of curiosity, I searched for pictures on "New Grenada" in Google. I found a few, and the shift in what has to be called "New Grenada" is clearly illustrated in the following time-series.
Map of New Grenada
Author: John Pilkerton, 1811. Scale 1:3,400,000. Publshers: Cadell & Davies; Longman, Hurst, Rees, Ome & Brown, London
Map of the Kingdom of New Grenada
Author: Hall Sidney, 1827. Scale 1:5,700,000. Publisher: Caddell, London.
Map of Venezuela, New Grenada & Equador
Author: Henny Tanner, 1836. Scale 1:6,969,600. Publisher: H.S. Tanner, Philadelphia
The first map shows that New Grenada at one time reached the borders of the Río Marañon, now in the territory of Perú. The last map is especially interesting, since it depicts the situation at the time from which many type material originate, that can still be found in museum collections. What struck me is the very different limitation of the 'Provinces" or "Departments". Colombia consisted in the mid-19th century of four parts: Cauca, Cundinamarca, Magdalena and Boyacá. Their geographical limits are, however, rather different from their current, being far more extensive. When interpreting old locality labels this knowledge can be very helpful to pinpoint certain places, which might not be located where one would expect them with today's map in front.
Just an example of some puzzles that I consider solved, where some geographical knowledge and modern facilities go hand in hand. One of the collectors who travelled extensively through Colombia at that time was Thomas Bland (1809-1885). Many of his collected material was studied by Pilsbry during his work for the Manual of Conchology. But quite often modern authors may be puzzled about some of the places that were visited by Bland.
There were three Drymaeus species with localities originating from Bland that, at first, I was unable to locate. "Between Salamina and Cabuyal, west of Ervé" was one of them, a locality reported for D. bogotensis (Pfeiffer). I looked up Ervé in the GNS gazetteer but nothing turned up. On the other hand, Salamina and Cabuyal - though not sounding like common names - turned up many times from different parts of Colombia. I decided to leave it and went on with my revision.
Another puzzling locality was "near Santa Ana", type locality of D. decoratus goniobasis Pilsbry, based on material collected by Bland. When I looked up "Santa Ana" in the gazetteer, many places of that name turned up from all over the country.
Finally, I came to D. geometricus (Pfeiffer), for which Pilsbry had another locality from Bland: "Forests in the mountains below Ervé, on the road to Santa Ana". I'm unaware if there has anything been published about the journeys of Bland in Colombia, but now I had three parts of a puzzle and I decided to find some solution. First the place "Ervé". This is a highly unusual spelling in Spanish, so it could be phonetical. I decided to look for "erve" in the GNS database, but not with "starts with" option enabled, but with the "contains" option instead. It turned up 6 names, of which 3 could be skipped right away. I ended up with "Páramo de Herveo" and two variants of the populated place "Herveo", all at or very close to 05° 05' 00" N 075° 10' 00" W, which is in Dept. Tolima. The first puzzle bit was in place.
The next step was to find Santa Ana, which could not be far away. When I scrutinized the list of names I did not find a place with a modern name that seemed logical to me. Then I was struck by the name Falán in the list, with a variant name Santa Ana, and located 25 km ENE of Herveo. That seemed logical to me, both places are in the region of Fresno in the upper Magdalena valley, from which the species have been reported.
Then finally Salamina and Cabuyal. With the location of Herveo in mind I looked through all the records for these names in the GNS gazetteer. Salamina is in Dept. Caldas, nearly 50 km NW of Herveo. And there is a "Quebrada Cabuyal" in Tolima, 60 km SE of Herveo. Both places are marked with red in the map below, while the three localties of the Drymaeus species mentioned are marked with yellow. Three species finally found their home.