Grishin, Zhang & Cong & Shen & Song & Grishin, 2023

Zhang, Jing, Cong, Qian, Shen, Jinhui, Song, Leina & Grishin, Nick V., 2023, Butterfly classification and species discovery using genomics, The Taxonomic Report of the International Lepidoptera Survey 11 (3), pp. 1-94 : 6-8

Lirinia Grishin , new subgenus

http://zoobank.org/ A59BC65A-CEE7-4380-8D40-877A90B74CFD

Type species. Terias lirina H. Bates, 1861 .

Definition. Our genomic tree reveals that the T. lirina ( type locality in Brazil: Pará) lineage is monophyletic with neither Abaeis Hübner, [1819] ( type species Papilio nicippe Cramer, 1779 ) nor Eurema Hübner, [1819] ( type species Papilio delia Cramer, 1780 , a junior homonym, valid name for this species is Pieris daira Godart, 1819 ), and instead is a confident sister to all other Pyrisitia A. Butler, 1870 ( type species Papilio proterpia Fabricius, 1775 ), but is genetically differentiated from them at the level of a subgenus ( Fig. 2). Therefore, we transfer T. lirina to Pyrisitia forming a new combination Pyrisitia lirina (H. Bates, 1861) and propose that its lineage represents a distinct subgenus of Pyrisitia . This new subgenus differs from its relatives by the characters given and illustrated for Eurema furtadoi Casagrande & O. Mielke, 1979 in its original description (Casagrade and Mielke 1979). In brief, wings rounded, mostly white with black forewing apex, reminiscent of Abaeis albula (Cramer, 1775) ( type locality in Suriname), with which it was lumped in the past ( Klots 1929), but with very different genitalia: in males, uncus broader, with two shot side processes (absent in A. albula ); saccus shorter, about the same length as tegumen with uncus; aedeagus bow-shaped, broader and shorter, twice as long as saccus; valva shaped as a half-circle, harpe with robust ventral tooth and much smaller vestigial dorsal tooth; in females, corpus bursae smaller with much smaller signum and a small bubble-shaped appendix (instead of the appendix as long as corpus). A combination of the following nuclear genomic base pairs is diagnostic: pse 1181.9.1: G68A, pse988.17.1:A57G, pse6193.9.1:G135T, pse5030.21.1:A392T, pse5030.21.1:T376G, pse907.3.2: A270C, pse 1899.1.7:G805A, pse 1899.1.7:T806C, pse 2087.5.1:C260T, pse102.3.4:C1026G.

Species included. Only the type species.

Parent taxon. Genus Pyrisitia A. Butler, 1870 .

are species-level taxa

As we previously concluded, Pyrisitia westwoodii (Boisduval, 1836) ( type locality in Mexico) is a distinct species, not a subspecies of Pyrisitia dina (Poey, 1832) ( type locality in Cuba) (Zhang et al. 2021). Sequencing of additional specimens that included the nominal P. dina ( Fig. 3 blue) confirms this conclusion, also confirming Pyrisitia parvumbra (Kaye, 1925) ( type locality in Jamaica) ( Fig. 3 magenta) as a distinct species ( Turner and Turland 2017): Fst / Gmin between P. parvumbra and P. dina dina of 0.59/0.002 and the COI barcode difference of 2.7% (18 bp). Furthermore, we find prominent genetic differentiation between P. dina and the taxon originally proposed as Eurema helios mayobanex M. Bates, 1939 ( type locality in Haiti): Fst / Gmin of 0.39/0.00, COI difference of 1.8% (12 bp). Therefore, we propose that Pyrisitia mayobanex (M. Bates, 1939) , stat. nov. is a species-level taxon. Inspecting the genomic trees, we see that Terias memulus Butler, 1871 ( type locality in Haiti), currently regarded as a subspecies of Pyrisitia leuce (Boisduval, 1836) ( type locality in Brazil: Rio Grande do Sul), is most strongly differentiated from it genetically: Fst / Gmin 0.60/0.00 and the COI barcode difference of 7.3% (48 bp) ( Fig. 3 orange), while other P. leuce subspecies cluster closely together in the tree ( Fig. 3 violet). Therefore, we reinstate Pyrisitia memulus (A. Butler, 1871) , stat. rest. as a species.