Tagiades obscurus Mabille, 1876

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 : 25

Tagiades obscurus Mabille, 1876 , Tagiades ravi (Moore, [1866]) , Tagiades atticus (Fabricius, 1793) , Tagiades titus Plötz, 1884 , Tagiades janetta Butler, 1870 , Tagiades inconspicua Rothschild, 1915 , and Tagiades hovia Swinhoe, 1904 , reinstated statuses

Placed by Evans (1949) as subspecies of Tagiades japetus (Stoll, [1781]) (type locality Ambon), the following seven taxa reveal genetic differentiation among them and the nominotypical japetus consistent with reproductive isolation: Tagiades obscurus Mabille, 1876 (type locality deduced as Sri Lanka), Pterygospidea ravi Moore, [1866] (type locality Bengal), Hesperia atticus Fabricius, 1793 (type locality suggested as Malay Peninsula), Tagiades titus Plötz, 1884 (type locality Philippines), Tagiades janetta Butler, 1870 (type locality Aru Islands), Tagiades hovia Swinhoe, 1904 (type locality Shortland Islands), and Tagiades inconspicua Rothschild, 1915 (type locality Manus Island) ( Fig. 4 ). For instance, COI barcode difference between sisters T. obscurus and P.ravi is 5.3% (35 bp) and between sisters T. inconspicua and T. janetta is 4.5% (30 bp). Among these eight taxa, the smallest COI difference is observed between nominotypical T. japetus and T. titus : 2.1% (14 bp). Combined with phenotypic differences described by Evans (1949), such genetic differences support species rank for these taxa. Comparing other subspecies in the T. japetus complex with available DNA sequences with their close relatives shows little differentiation for many pairs, for example, P.ravi and Tagiades khasiana ravina Fruhstorfer, 1910 (type locality Andamas) COI barcodes differ by 0.3% (2 bp). Therefore, we suggest to divide the japetus complex into eight species and tentatively assign other subspecies considered valid by Evans (1949) to these species as follows: T. k. ravina of T. ravi ; Tagiades japetus carnica Evans, 1934 (type locality Car Nicobar), Tagiades japetus nankowra Evans, 1934 (type locality Nancowry), Pterygospidea helferi C. Felder, 1862 (type locality Pulomilo) and Tagiades balana Fruhstorfer, 1910 (type locality N. Borneo) of T. atticus ; Tagiades japetus mathias Evans, 1934 (type locality St. Mathias) of T. inconspicua ; Tagiades japetus kazana Evans, 1934 (type locality Treasury Islands) of T. hovia ; while others remain as subspecies of T. japetus . This treatment is conservative, because some of these species show non-trivial difference in barcodes within species, for example, T. atticus and T. balana differ by 1.7% (11 bp), and we have not obtained sequences of several taxa, for instance a uniquely patterned T. kazana . It is likely that some of our seven species (probably T. atticus , T. japetus and T. janetta ) are complexes of additional species to be sorted out in future work.

Figures

Figure 4. Genomic tree of Tagiades. See Fig. 1 legend for notations.