Afrix, Zhang & Cong & Shen & Song & Grishin, 2025

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 : 31-32

Afrix Grishin , new subgenus

http://zoobank.org/ 0EC2FE69-362B-4D26-BCAB-33E037003D40

Type species. Dipsas antalus Hopffer, 1855 .

Definition. Genomic phylogeny reveals that African species currently placed in Deudorix Hewitson, 1863 (type species Dipsas epijarbas F. Moore, 1858 ) or Virachola F. Moore, 1881 (type species Deudorix perse Hewitson, 1863 ) are not monophyletic with these genera and instead form a clade sister to another African genus Capys Hewitson, 1865 (type species Papilio alpheus Cramer, 1777 ), being closely related to it ( Fig. 24 purple and magenta); e.g., their COI barcodes differ by 4% (26 bp). Accordingly, we assign these species to the genus Capys , but, in light of some genetic divergence and pronounced differences in wing shape and pattern, we recognize them as a distinct subgenus. This new subgenus corresponds to “ Virachola ” of Stempffer (1967) who summarized its morphological characters. In brief, the aedeagus is typically longer; falces are shorter and thicker, in many species with a small apophysis; valvae are bladeshaped, frequently shorter, and are fused from the base, in some species for nearly their entire length, and are either long and terminally pointed or appear irregularly truncated ( Larsen 2005); the hindwing with a prominent tornal lobe and a hair-like tail; the ventral forewing with a hair tuft and the dorsal hindwing with a small androconial spot at the base; the ventral wing pattern is frequently with rounder spots framed or filled by reddish (instead of grayish) scales; the dorsal hindwing is nearly all orange in males of many species. In DNA, a combination of the following characters is diagnostic in the nuclear genome: cce3319. 2.2:T72A, cce3268.2.3:G82A, cce 2518.2.9:T2032C, cce 2518.2.9:A2061G, cce18900.2.2:T168C; and COI barcode: T38T, T304C, 400A, 514T, T547A.

Etymology. The name is a fusion of Af [rican] + [Deudo] rix, referring to the African distribution of this taxon. The name is a feminine noun in the nominative singular.

Species included. The type species (i.e., Dipsas antalus Hopffer, 1855 ), Lycaena batikeli Boisduval, 1833 , Deudorix caliginosa Lathy, 1903 , Deudorix dariaves Hewitson, 1877 , Deudorix dinochares Grose-Smith, 1887 , Deudorix dinomenes Grose-Smith, 1887 , Deudorix diocles Hewitson, [1869] , Deudorix diopolis Hewitson, [1878] , Deudorix (Virachola) ecaudata Gifford, 1963 , Virachola? edwardsi Gabriel, 1939 , Thecla galathea Swainson, [1821] , Deudorix (Virachola) kayonza Stempffer, 1956 , Lycaena livia Klug, [1834] , Myrina lorisona Hewitson, [1863] , Deudorix nicephora Hulstaert, 1924 , Deudorix odana Druce, 1887 , Hypolycaena renidens Mabille, 1884 , Deudorix (Virachola) suk Stempffer, 1948 , Virachola 1951, and Deudorix vansoni Pennington, 1948 .

Parent taxon. Genus Capys Hewitson, 1865 .