Pellicia ( Hemipteris ) toza Evans, 1953

Zhang, Jing, Cong, Qian, Shen, Jinhui, Song, Leina & Grishin, Nick V., 2025, Advancing butterfly systematics through genomic analysis, The Taxonomic Report of the International Lepidoptera Survey 12 (5), pp. 1-201 : 130

Pellicia ( Hemipteris) toza Evans, 1953 is a species distinct from Pellicia ( Hemipteris) tyana Plötz, 1882

Genomic analysis reveals that a specimen from Panama identified by Bell through genitalia inspection (slide G1366) as Pellicia tyana toza Evans, 1953 (type locality in Colombia, Magdalena Valley), sequenced as NVG-18019H06, and two other Panamanian specimens (not shown) are not monophyletic with Pellicia ( Hemipteris) tyana Plötz, 1882 (type locality in Brazil, likely São Paulo, lectotype sequenced as NVG-15032D11), which Evans (1953) misidentified, and instead are closely related to Pellicia ( Hemipteris) arina Evans, 1953 (type locality in Mexico: Veracruz, Atoyac) being genetically differentiated from it at the species level ( Fig. 90 ). Therefore, we propose that Pellicia ( Hemipteris) toza Evans, 1953 , stat. nov. is a species distinct from Pellicia ( Hemipteris) tyana Plötz, 1882 .

Figures

Fig. 90. Phylogenetic trees of selected Pellicia species inferred from protein-coding regions in: a) the nuclear genome (autosomes), b) the Z chromosome, and c) [see next page] the mitochondrial genome. Primary type specimens are labeled in red-purple, and a paralectotype of P. tyana (not conspecific with the lectotype) is labeled in blue. Different species mentioned in the text are shown in different colors. The sequence of SAMN18587826 is taken from the alignment provided in Kawahara et al. (2023).