Pontia johnstonii (Crowley, 1887)

Zhang, Jing, Cong, Qian, Shen, Jinhui, Song, Leina & Grishin, Nick V., 2023, Genomic analysis reveals new species and subspecies of butterflies, The Taxonomic Report of the International Lepidoptera Survey 11 (6), pp. 1-63 : 6

Pontia johnstonii (Crowley, 1887) is a species distinct from Pontia helice (Linnaeus, 1764)

Synchloe johnstonii Crowley, 1887 (type locality Tanzania: Kilimanjaro) currently treated as a subspecies of Papilio helice Linnaeus, 1764 (type locality South Africa: Tulbagh) in the genus Pontia [Fabricius], 1807 (type species Papilio daplidice Linnaeus, 1758 ) is genetically differentiated from it at the level characteristic of distinct species ( Fig. 2), e.g., COI barcodes differ by 3.8% (25 bp), and is phenotypically distinguished by nearly black framing around olive overscaling of veins on hindwing. Therefore, we propose that Pontia johnstonii (Crowley, 1887) , stat. rest. is a species distinct from Pontia helice (Linnaeus, 1764) .