Urbanus ( Urbanoides ) elmina Evans, 1952

Zhang, Jing, Cong, Qian, Shen, Jinhui, Song, Leina & Grishin, Nick V., 2025, Update to: Advancing butterfly systematics through genomic analysis, The Taxonomic Report of the International Lepidoptera Survey 12 (6), pp. 1-36 : 17

Urbanus ( Urbanoides) elmina Evans, 1952 is confirmed from Colombia

In the original description of Urbanus ( Urbanoides) elma Grishin, 2025 (type locality in Venezuela: Mérida) we provided a phylogenetic tree showing specimens of Urbanus ( Urbanoides) elmina Evans, 1952 (type locality in Ecuador: Rio Pastaza) from Ecuador, Peru, and Argentina ( Zhang et al. 2025a). The only specimen from Colombia (without further locality details) was the paratype of U. elma . To date, we have sequenced specimens of U. elmina from additional localities in Ecuador and also from western Colombia ( Valle del Cauca and Cauca Departments), thus confirming this species from Colombia ( Fig. 11 ). While we have not found more specimens of U. elma , we stumbled upon a specimen of a new species, which is described next.

Figures

Fig. 11. Phylogenetic trees of selected Urbanus species constructed from protein-coding regions in: a) the Z chromosome, based on 548,172 positions, and b) the mitochondrial genome. Species discussed in the text are colored differently: U. elma (red), U. elmina (blue), U. viridis (green), U. dolus sp. n. (magenta), and U. esta (cyan). Gaps in branches indicate where vertical slices of the tree were removed to reduce its horizontal dimension (to allow an increase in the font size), i.e., branches with gaps are longer than shown.