Eudamus caicus Herrich-Schäffer, 1869

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 : 62

Lectotype designation for Eudamus caicus Herrich-Schäffer, 1869 with the type locality likely in Mexico: Oaxaca

Eudamus caicus Herrich-Schäffer, 1869 (type locality Tropical America, possibly into southern USA), currently a valid species in the genus Cogia Butler, 1870 (type species Cogia hassan Butler, 1870 ) was described from an unstated number of specimens without details about their localities ( Herrich-Schäffer 1869). One specimen without a locality label is curated in the MFNB collection as a syntype of E. caicus . We determine that this specimen is indeed a syntype because it agrees with the original description and matches closely in wing patterns a specimen BMNH(E) 1236437 (a male, in BMNH) that Godman selected as the most similar in his collection to the unpublished drawing by Plötz of Eudamus schaefferi Plötz, 1881 (a replacement name for E. caicus Herrich-Schäffer, 1869 , erroneously deemed preoccupied), and labeled as “Compared with | Plotz’s drawing of | schaefferi, | Plötz | caicus, | HS.” Godman placed such similar-styled labels on specimens that, in his opinion, closely resembled the originals of Plötz’s drawings that he inspected ( Godman 1907), and we use this specimen as a “proxy” for the drawing. We note that E. schaefferi (Plötz’s t[afel]. 129, which is E. caicus H.-S.) was not mentioned in Godman’s publication (1907), which might be because that work dealt with American species, but the locality for E. schaefferi was not explicitly stated in the original description and, due to the lack of locality labels on the syntype, likely not appearing on the Plötz’s drawing numbered 129. This Godman’s specimen from “ N. Sonora , | Mexico ” is actually Cogia caicus moschus (W. H. Edwards, 1882) , but is similar in wing pattern to the nominotypical C. caicus ; its photographs are shown on the Butterflies of America website ( Warren et al. 2023). To stabilize nomenclature, N.V.G. hereby designates the syntype in the MFNB collection, a female with the following seven printed labels, the 1 st purple and others white: [Origin], [Coll. H.— Sch.], [Daunus Cr.], [Caicus | HS. | Achlyodes], [Caicus | H-Sch.], [{QR Code} http://coll.mfn-berlin.de/u/ | 940b5d], and [DNA sample ID: | NVG-15032A02 | c/o Nick V. Grishin ] as the lectotype of Eudamus caicus Herrich-Schäffer, 1869 . Genomic trees place the lectotype among specimens from Mexico, Oaxaca ( Fig. 37), suggesting that it was collected there because it is genetically within this metapopulation. Therefore, we infer that the type locality of Cogia caicus ( Herrich-Schäffer, 1869) may be in Oaxaca and will test this hypothesis further by sequencing specimens from other localities.