Pieris chumbiensis gyantsensis Verity, 1911

Pieris dubernardi var. chumbiensis r. gyantsensis Verity, 1911; Rho-pa-locera Palaearctica (30-36): 329, pl. 66, f. 21-23; TL: "Gyangtse, S. Tibet" (original description)

Synchloe chumbiensis gyantsensis; Bollow (1930): The Macrolepido-ptera of the World, supplement to Vol. 1: 339 pp, pl.16. (infrasubspecific name validated as subspecies of Synchloe chumbiensis)

Pieris gyantsensis; Tadokoro et al. (2014): Butterflies 65: 33 (as distinct species)

Pieris chumbiensis gyantsensis; Tadokoro et al. (2016): Lepidoptera Science 67: 99-114

Pieris chumbiensis gyantsensis; Huang (2019): Neue Entomologische Nachrichten 77: 203-255 (pictured, keyed)

Description.

Medium size. Both wings whitish on the upperside while yellowish on the underside. Male (Fig. 13G): apical spot blackish, triangular extending along veins to outer margin with a trend of merging. A short black band at the end of the discocell. The 1st spot distinct and oval-shaped, with a trend of a spot faintly occurs on the cell between vein CuA1 and CuA2; outer spot less faintly present on the upperside. All veins of hindwings heavily brownish powdered on the underside, with a brownish sub-outer marginal band. Female (Fig. 13H): resembles male but with black markings more developed. The 1st spot distinctly developed and extends as a black band reaching the posterior margin. Hindwings with blackish sub-marginal band distinctly developed on both sides.

Distribution.

Tibet (from Lhasa to Nyalam)

Phenology.

Univoltine, occurs in June and July.

Male genitalia.

(Fig. 5Q) tegumen broad with its distal margin slightly narrower; basal margin of uncus slightly convex with a moderate concave between tegumen and uncus; uncus with its median part slightly convex, apical half of uncus digitation.

Female genitalia.

(Fig. 8C) posterior apophysis long and slender, extended beyond the 8th tergum; inner distal of sterigma lobe shaped extend to center; inner basal of sterigma without distinct convex, smoothly connected at the basal margin; signum short and broad, almost disk shaped with smooth and shallowly concave on the terminal margin; basal part of signum tubular with distinct bending on the most basal part.

Note.

The taxon Pieris gyantsensis was originally published by Verity (1911) as a quadrinomial race belonging to P. chum-biensis, thus unavailable due to being infrasub-specific. When Bollow (1930) re-defined this taxon as a subspecies of Synchloe chumbiensis, the subspecies name became an available name. This taxon was once mistreated as belonging to the P. napi -complex by Tadokoro et al. (2014) according to their phylogenetic results and observations on androconial characteristics. Our molecular results oppositely showed that this taxon constitues a distinct molecular lineage separated from the P. napi -complex. Moreover, this taxon has long been considered as a member of the P. dubernardi -group, a unique species group with distinctive morphological characteristics and a high altitude habitat which includes P. dubernardi, P. rothschildi, P. wangi as well as P. chumbiensis .