Cecropterus nevada (Scudder, 1872)

Zhang, Jing, Cong, Qian, Shen, Jinhui, Opler, Paul A. & Grishin, Nick V., 2020, Genomic evidence suggests further changes of butterfly names, The Taxonomic Report of the International Lepidoptera Survey 8 (7), pp. 1-41 : 28

Cecropterus nevada (Scudder, 1872) and Cecropterus dobra ( Evans, 1952) are species distinct from Cecropterus mexicana (Herrich-Schäffer, 1869)

Genomic analysis of Cecropterus mexicana (Herrich-Schäffer, 1869) (type locality Mexico) reveals a pronounced divergence between its subspecies (Fig. 24) that was analyzed further. The genomic tree shows separation between some of them comparable to that from

Cecropterus diversus ( E. Bell ,

1927) (type locality USA:

California, Plumas Co. ). While

Cecropterus mexicana aemilea

(Skinner, 1893) (type locality

USA: Oregon, Klamath Co.,

male syntype sequenced), C. mexicana blanca (J. Scott, 1981) (type locality USA: California, Mono Co. ) and C. mexicana nevada (Scudder, 1872) (type locality USA: California, Sierra Nevada) group closely together (all three unified under the name nevada below), C. mexicana dobra ( Evans, 1952) (type locality USA: Arizona, Graham Co.) forms a clade distinct from them and C. mexicana . The Fst/Gmin statistics for these clades are: mexicana vs. dobra : 0.34/0.021, mexicana vs. nevada : 0.37/0.010, nevada vs. dobra : 0.30/0.055. We see that nevada and dobra exchange genes more frequently with each other than do each of them with mexicana . Differences between COI barcodes in pairs of these species are: mexicana and dobra : 1.8% (12 bp), mexicana and nevada : 1.1% (7 bp), nevada and dobra : 1.7% (11 bp). For comparison, the COI barcodes of aemilea, blanca and nevada are 100% identical. Curiously, in contrast to nuclear genomes (Fig. 24), mitochondrial genomes (as reflected by barcodes) place mexicana closer to nevada , and dobra farther away from them, which is yet another example of the peculiarity of mitochondrial evolution. Deriving further support from genitalic and wing pattern differences mentioned by Evans (1952), we suggest that Cecropterus nevada (Scudder, 1872) , reinstated status, and Cecropterus dobra ( Evans, 1952) , new status, are species-level taxa, not subspecies of Cecropterus mexicana (Herrich-Schäffer, 1869) . Then, we treat Cecropterus nevada aemilea (Skinner, 1893) and Cecropterus nevada blanca (J. Scott, 1981) , new combinations, as subspecies of C. nevada .