Polygonus punctus E. Bell and W. Comstock, 1948

Zhang, Jing, Cong, Qian & Grishin, Nick V., 2023, Thirteen new species of butterflies (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae) from Texas, Insecta Mundi 2023 (969), pp. 1-58 : 34

Polygonus punctus E. Bell and W. Comstock, 1948 , new status, is a species distinct from Polygonus savigny (Latreille, [1824])

Genomic analysis of the lectotype of Hesperia savigny Latreille, [1824] (type locality not stated), currently in the genus Polygonus Hübner, [1825] , and the holotype of Polygonus manueli E. Bell and W. Comstock, 1948 (type locality Brazil: Santa Catarina, New Bremen) together with a more recently collected specimen from Southeast Brazil confirms that they are conspecific ( Fig. 31 green), but reveals that the holotype of Polygonus manueli punctus E. Bell and W. Comstock, 1948 (type locality St. Vincent), currently regarded as a subspecies of P. savigny , together with other specimens from Lesser Antilles and Isla Margarita, Venezuela are in a distinct clade ( Fig. 31 blue), prominently separated from the green clade in both nuclear and mitochondrial genome trees. COI barcodes of P. savigny savigny and P.savigny punctus differ by 3% (20 bp). In the presence of phenotypic differences, this genetic differentiation suggests that Polygonus punctus E. Bell and W. Comstock, 1948 , new status, is a species-level taxon. Due to genetic similarities, we hypothesize that the type locality of H. savigny Latreille, [1824] may be in Southeast Brazil.

Figures

Figure 31. Trees of Polygonus constructed from protein-coding regions in a) nuclear and b) mitochondrial genomes: P. pardus sp. n. (red), P. punctus (blue), and P. savigny (green). Primary type specimens are labeled in magenta. See Fig. 1 legend for other notations.