Chrysoritis chrysantas (Trimen 1868)

Heath, Alan, 2023, Chrysoritis Butler (Papilionoidea: Lycaenidae: Aphnaeinae) - Part III: An integrative taxonomic revision, Metamorphosis 34 (1), pp. 11-28 : 16-17

Chrysoritis chrysantas (Trimen 1868) .

Zeritis chrysantas Trimen 1868: 85 .

Holotype: NHM, London. Type locality: Murraysburg .

Sister species to the thysbe clade. Host plant Salsola tuberculata ( Chenopodiaceae ) and host ant Crem. melanogaster .

Conservation status: LC.

Characters: Upper side orange-red with narrow black margins and prominent white interneural cilia. Underside hind wing mottled light and dark grey. Male aedeagus lacks cornuti. Forewing with eleven veins. Juvenile stages shown in Fig. 5 (p. 17). This species is placed as sister to the thysbe clade in the COI tree, but not in the nuclear gene trees.

Western Lineage: thysbe clade

TEA20 estimated the age of the thysbe clade to be 2–3.6 MY(95% confidence interval), but given that Kawahara et al. (2023) inferred a much younger maximum age for the split between Chrysoritis and its sister group than TEA20 (25 vs. 41 MYA), by extrapolation, this older limit of 3.6 MY is likely to be a significant overestimate. The origin of the thysbe clade likely coincided with the start of the Pleistocene ~2.6 MYA.

There are 37 named species in the thysbe clade. All but six (marked with asterisks) have some structural colour and iridescence. The thysbe clade species are:

pelion, amatola *, violescens .

mt Clade 1: williami , pan , aridus *, turneri *, lysander azurius , trimeni, wykehami *, lyndseyae , perseus , uranus, aridimontis (also in mt Clade 3).

mt Clade 2: thysbe .

mt Clade 3: pyramus, whitei , endymion , rileyi, mithras , daphne , plutus , blencathrae *, palmus *, brooksi , swanepoeli , irene , nigricans, zwartbergae , adonis , beulah (also in mt Clade 4), aridimontis (also in mt Clade 1).

mt Clade 4: beaufortia, stepheni , beulah (also in mt Clade 3), braueri , penningtoni , orientalis .

Reassignment of taxa: The COI data indicate that a few subspecies might have historically been assigned to the wrong species; those subspecies are treated as separate entities or re-assigned in this review. Characters: Upper side yellowish red with dark borders, discal and apical spots. In most taxa both sexes have some silvery-blue structural colouring in the basal part of the wing while males also have iridescence, however, in males of five species, both structural colouring and iridescence are absent to the naked eye. Hind wing verso with distinctive pattern of light ochre and brown or reddish-brown striae. This pattern varies in contrast and definition between and within species and in some specimens or populations it can be obscure, e.g., C. pan pan and C. p. henningi . The hind wing in both sexes has the tornus markedly produced. Forewing with twelve veins; vein 5 (M2) may be extended to varying degrees in some taxa, causing the outer margin to appear concave. Also, outer margin of both wings may be serrated in some species but this is variable. Male genitalia: aedeagus vesica with a ±60μ wide fan- shaped cluster of very fine cornuti (see Heath, 1997 pl. 4). All taxa in the thysbe clade are herbivorous and have an obligate relationship with a species of Crem. ants. The thysbe clade comprises six main mitochondrial lineages: C.pelion , C. amatola + C. violescens , and mt clades 1 – 4.

Figures

Figure 5 – C. chrysantas (Garies). Final instar (top), C. chrysantas distal four larval segments (bottom). Not to scale.