Danaus eresimus (Cramer, 1777)

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 : 25-27

Danaus eresimus (Cramer, 1777) belongs to subgenus Danaus Kluk, 1780 , together with Danaus plexippus (Linnaeus, 1758) , and not to subgenus Anosia Hübner, 1816

together with Danaus gilippus (Cramer, 1775)

Danaus eresimus (Cramer, 1777) (type locality Suriname) looks superficially similar to Danaus gilippus (Cramer, 1775) (type locality Brazil: Rio de Janeiro) and at times it is a challenge to distinguish these two species. On the contrary, Danaus plexippus (Linnaeus, 1758) (type locality USA: New York, Orleans Co.)

is superficially more different from either D. eresimus or D. gilippus

( Warren et al. 2016). Due to these superficial similarities and differences, traditionally, only the former, as the type species, belonged to Danaus Kluk, 1780 , and the latter two species were placed in Anosia Hübner, 1816 (type species Papilio gilippus Cramer, 1775 ) ( Ackery and Vane-Wright 1984; Pelham 2008; Pelham 2020). However, among these three species, genomic data (both nuclear and mitochondrial genomes) place D. eresimus as a sister to D. plexippus with high confidence (Fig. 20), and D. gilippus is a sister to that clade of the two species, in agreement with previous DNA-based analyses ( Zhan et al. 2014; Aardema and Andolfatto 2016). Therefore, we transfer Danaus eresimus (Cramer, 1777) from the subgenus Anosia where it does not belong, to the subgenus Danaus in accord with the phylogeny of these three species. This change has already been implemented by Pelham in the most recent version of the catalogue (2020) after the discussion of our genomic data and previous works with NVG. Here, we simply formalize this change in a publication.

Chlosyne coronado (M. Smith & Brock, 1988) is a species distinct from Chlosyne fulvia (W. H. Edwards, 1879) Chlosyne chinatiensis (Tinkham, 1944) is a species distinct from Chlosyne theona (Ménétriés, 1855)

In their revision of the theona group, Austin and Smith ( Austin and Smith 1998) placed Melitaea chinatiensis Tinkham, 1944 (type locality USA: Texas, Presidio Co.) as a subspecies of Chlosyne theona

(Ménétriés, 1855) (type locality Nicaragua). While accepting subspecies-level treatment of chinatiensis, Pelham (2008) writes: "There is considerable reason to consider this a distinct species from theona . More investigation is required." We carried out our genomic investigation by Fig. 22. Chlosyne chinatiensis (red) and theona (blue). sequencing of three chinatiensis specimens from the US and Mexico (Fig. 22) and found that their comparison with theona specimens from across the range (from Arizona, Texas and Costa Rica) results in the following Fst/Gmin statistics: 0.35/0.019, indicating genetic differentiation and low gene exchange consistent with chinatiensis being a species-level taxon. The COI barcodes of C. chinatiensis and C. theona thekla differ by 1.4% (9 bp), but those of C. chinatiensis and C. theona bolli differ by 0.6% (4 bp). Moreover, C. chinatiensis is sympatric with C. theona bolli in west Texas, e.g. in the Big Bend National Park. Given this evidence, we reinstate Chlosyne chinatiensis (Tinkham, 1944) as a species.