Karner is a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

of the

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

of Colonie, Albany County, New York, United States. Once called Center Station, it was a stop along the

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Mid ...

(NYCRR) that became famous for being the site where the Karner Blue

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprise ...

was first identified.

History

Karner started as Center Station along the New York Central Railroad's (NYCRR) tracks. The station was built in 1831. George Karner, in the mid-to-late 19th century, bought the land that would become the hamlet and laid out streets and lots, though most did not sell. Center was renamed Karner in 1880 for him. Though development never made Karner important, the lack of development did save the ''Plebejus melissa samuelis'', or Karner Blue butterfly. The common name of the butterfly is named after the hamlet, because it was here that

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bor ...

first identified the

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

and used the specimens located in the

Albany Pine Bush The Albany Pine Bush, referred to locally as the Pine Bush, is one of the largest of the 20 inland pine barrens in the world. It is centrally located in New York's Capital District within Albany and Schenectady counties, between the cities of A ...

as the

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes th ...

for the identification of the entire species.

Geography

Karner is centered along Karner Road with the

CSXT CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada ...

tracks between Albany and Schenectady passing through the center of the hamlet. Along the western edge of Karner is the New Karner Road,

New York Route 155 New York State Route 155 (NY 155) is a state highway located entirely within Albany County in the Capital District of New York. The western terminus of the route is at NY 85A in Voorheesville. The eastern terminus is at NY&nbs ...

. The edges surrounding the core of the hamlet are rural

pine barrens Pine barrens, pine plains, sand plains, or pineland areas occur throughout the U.S. from Florida to Maine (see Atlantic coastal pine barrens) as well as the Midwest, West, and Canada and parts of Eurasia. Perhaps the most well known pine-barre ...

with much of the land protected in the Pine Bush Preserve.

Location

References

{{Albany County, New York Colonie, New York Hamlets in New York (state) Hamlets in Albany County, New York