Gomalia jeanneli levana Benyamini, 1990

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 : 142-143

Gomalia jeanneli levana Benyamini, 1990 , comb. nov.

Genomic analysis of Gomalia F. Moore, 1879 (type species Gomalia albofasciata F. Moore, 1879 ) specimens reveals that Gomalia jeanneli (Picard, 1949) (type locality in Kenya, holotype sequenced as NVG-18079B11) is sister to Gomalia albofasciata Moore, 1879 (type locality in Sri Lanka) ( Fig. 104), COI barcode difference of 2.3% (15 bp), and is more distantly related to Gomalia elma (Trimen, 1862) (type locality in South Africa) with which it is likely sympatric in Kenya, COI barcode difference of 6.4% (42 bp). Moreover, Gomalia elma levana Benyamini, 1990 (type locality in Israel) clusters closely with G. jeanneli and not with G. elma , not being strongly differentiated genetically from the former ( Fig. 104); e.g., their COI barcodes differ by 0.9% (6 bp). Therefore, not having sufficient evidence to treat G. elma levana as a species-level taxon, we place it as a subspecies of G. jeanneli , instead of G. elma as originally proposed, to form a new species-subspecies combination: Gomalia jeanneli levana Benyamini, 1990 .

Thus far, we have only sequenced two specimens of G. jeanneli : the holotype from Kenya (see fig. 3 in Zhang et al. (2020a)) and another specimen from Ethiopia ( Fig. 105a). Both specimens are males, are dark brown without the pale pattern characteristic of Gomalia , and are smaller than G. elma ( Fig. 106c, d), similar in size to G. jeanneli levana ( Fig. 105b). It is unclear whether all nominate G. jeanneli are small and brown like this, or if it is just a color form, and pale-patterned specimens of larger size exist in these populations.