Molecular taxonomy of Tomares hairstreaks (Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae, Theclinae)

By

Nazari, Vazrick
Hagen, Wolfgang ten

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2020

Original Publication

Deutsche entomologische Zeitschrift

Volume

67

Series / Issue

Issue: 1

Pages

19--33

Subjects

Biogeography , Butterflies , DNA , Hybridization , Introgression , phylogenetics

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Berlin Nicolai'sche Verlags-Buchandlung 1881-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/dez.67.50252

 

Abstract

Tomares hairstreaks comprise about 10 species distributed from Europe and North Africa to Central Asia. The taxonomy of the genus is hampered by the absence of diagnostic characters by which specimens can be unambiguously assigned to species. Our investigation of morphology and DNA barcode variations within and between Tomares species shows that while well-defined species (T. ballus, T. mauritanicus, T. callimachus, T. desinens and T. fedtschenkoi) diverge, poorly characterized taxa (T. nogelii, T. nesimachus, T. dobrogensis, T. romanovi and T. telemachus) show very little to no differentiation in mtDNA. We reinstate Tomares callimachus spp. hafis (Kollar, 1849) as a valid subspecies (stat. rev.) and propose taxa telemachus Zhdanko, 2000 and uighurica Koçak, Seven & Kemal, 2000 as synonyms of T. romanovi and T. nogelii nogelii respectively (syn. nov.). We relegate Polyommatus epiphania Boisduval, 1848, recently revived as a valid subspecies of T. callimachus, back to synonymy under the latter, and reconsider the status of T. nogelii dobrogensis (Caradja, 1895) in the light of new molecular data. We use a nuclear gene (EF-1α) in addition to COI barcodes to reconstruct the phylogeny of the group.