Leucochitonea Wallengren, 1857

Zhang, Jing, Cong, Qian, Shen, Jinhui & Grishin, Nick V., 2022, Taxonomic changes suggested by the genomic analysis of Hesperiidae (Lepidoptera), Insecta Mundi 2022 (921), pp. 1-135 : 27

Leucochitonea Wallengren, 1857 is a junior subjective synonym of Abantis Hopffer, 1855

Leucochitonea Wallengren, 1857 (type species Leucochitonea levubu Wallengren, 1857 ) and Abantis Hopffer, 1855 (type species Abantis tettensis Hopffer, 1855 ) cluster closely in the tree ( Fig. 3 ), their COI barcodes are different by 6.2% (41 bp). Their genitalia are similar, wing shapes are similar, and the major distinction of Leucochitonea is in its white-colored wings, which is hardly a good argument for the genus distinction: for example, Capila pieridoides (Moore, 1878) , the white-patterned species, is included within the same genus with the darker-patterned species. Therefore we suggest to treat Leucochitonea Wallengren, 1857 as a junior subjective synonym of Abantis Hopffer, 1855 .

Figures

Figure 3. Genomic tree of Tagiadinae. See Fig. 1 legend for notations.