Entheus priassus ( Linnaeus, 1758 )

Zhang, Jing, Cong, Qian, Shen, Jinhui, Song, Leina & Grishin, Nick V., 2025, Advancing butterfly systematics through genomic analysis, The Taxonomic Report of the International Lepidoptera Survey 12 (5), pp. 1-201 : 36-39

from Entheus priassus ( Linnaeus, 1758)

Genomic analysis reveals that sequenced specimens that we identified as Entheus priassus ( Linnaeus, 1758) (type locality stated as “ Indiis ”, likely in or around Suriname) partition into three species ( Fig. 31, marked as yellow-highlighted 1, 2, and 3 above their clades). The first species is more widespread with specimens sequenced from Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. The second and the third species were sequenced from French Guiana (and one specimen from Brazil: Amapá) and Guyana, respectively ( Fig. 32). We note that these distribution records are based only on several sequenced specimens and are necessarily incomplete, to be addressed by more comprehensive sequencing .

The first species is characterized by males with wider yellow-orange bands and more developed hyalinity along the distal margin of the discal band, and females with more restricted pale spotting, including the discal spot on the dorsal hindwing and wider separation between white forewing spots in the discal cell and the cell CuA 1 -CuA 2, with the latter spot being out of alignment with (tilted distad from) the former. This phenotype matches best the lectotype illustration of Papilio peleus Linnaeus, 1763 (type Entheus cramerianus Mabille, 1898 (type locality in Suriname and French Guiana) syntype from Suriname in Stoll (1782), a female. We note that in our interpretation of the original description ( Mabille 1898), the type series of E. cramerianus consists of females only: the specimen identified as Papilio talaus and illustrated in fig. C, pl. 393 in Stoll (1782), referred to as “ Pap. Talaus Cram. pl. 293, nec Lin” (293 is a lapsus for 393) by Mabille (1898) and female specimens considered to belong to this species and inspected by Mabille (1898), which he referred to as “On le reçoit de la Guyane assez fréquemment” (“we receive it from [French] Guiana quite frequently”). For the stability of nomenclature, we maintain the synonymy between P. peleus and Papilio priassus Linnaeus, 1758 (type locality stated as “Indiis”, likely in or around Suriname), described from male(s), not illustrated, the original description agrees with males of any of these three (and many other Entheus ) species, and identify this first species as P. priassus . Neotypes for these taxa are designated below to preserve this synonymy in prevailing usage.

The second species is characterized by narrower and straighter at margins orange bands with less hyalinity in males, and females with larger white spots, including the discal spot on the dorsal hindwing and better aligned, larger spots in the forewing discal cell and the cell CuA 1 -CuA 2, with these two spots and the spot in the cell CuA 2 -1A+2A forming a white band. This phenotype agrees best with the lectotype illustration of Papilio talaus Linnaeus, 1763 (type locality stated as “Indiis”, likely in or around Suriname), a female, by Clerck ([1764]), a syntype illustration of Peleus aeacus Swainson, 1831 (type locality in South America), a male, by Swainson (1831) and a syntype of Phareas serenus Plötz, 1883 (type locality not specified) from the Weymer collection that we located in MFNB. Therefore, we propose that Entheus talaus (Linnaeus, 1763) , stat. rest. is a species distinct from Entheus priassus ( Linnaeus, 1758) ; Papilio peleus Linnaeus, 1763 with Entheus cramerianus Mabille, 1898 are junior subjective synonyms of Entheus priassus ; and Peleus aeacus Swainson, 1831 with Phareas serenus Plötz, 1883 are junior synonyms of Entheus talaus . This treatment appears most consistent with the available literature on these taxa, and lectotypes or neotypes for most of them are designated accordingly in the sections below.

The third species, from Guyana, differs by the doublet of semi-hyaline spots in forewing cells M 1 - M 2 and M 2 -M 3 being stronger offset distad from the triplet of the subapical spots (in a female, this doublet is narrower compared to other species) and the semi-hyaline spot in the cell M 3 -CuA 1 only narrowly connected to the discal orange band (among other characters) and is new, described below. Genomic trees focusing on this subgroup of three species are shown in Fig. 32.

Papilio priassus ♂ NVG-18095F12; b) neotype of Papilio peleus ♂ NVG-23117A03; c) neotype of Peleus aeacus ♂ NVG-18038E04; d) lectotype of Phareas serenus ♀ NVG-22091A04 that is also the neotype of Papilio talaus , with its labels shown below and reduced by a quarter in size compared to specimens. The scale for labels is shown below them, and the scale for specimens is in the middle of the figure.