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.