Gomalia litoralis Swinhoe, 1885

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 : 143

Gomalia litoralis Swinhoe, 1885 , stat. rest. is a valid species distinct from Gomalia albofasciata F. Moore, 1879

Genomic analysis of Gomalia F. Moore, 1879 (type species Gomalia albofasciata F. Moore, 1879 ) specimens from Oman and Yemen reveals that they partition into two clades ( Fig. 104). One male (NVG-24054D01, Oman, Rustaq, 5-Mar-1979, T. B. Larsen leg. [ZMUC], Fig. 105b) is placed with Gomalia jeanneli levana Benyamini, 1990 (type locality in Israel), is phenotypically similar to it in being ventrally pale with a diffuse cream band and small size, and we identify it as this subspecies. Other specimens (T. B. Larsen leg. in ZMUC from Oman: 1♂ NVG-24054B04 Al Batinah Region, Barka 4-Mar-1979, Fig. 105c and 1 ♀ NVG-24054B05 Rustaq, 5-Mar-1979, Fig. 105d, and 1 ♂ NVG-24054B06 Yemen, Wadi Dahr, N of Sana'a, 10-May-1980) are larger, with more extensive and better-defined cream bands, and are in the clade with Gomalia elma (Trimen, 1862) (type locality in South Africa) ( Fig. 106c, d), thus being more distant from G. albofasciata (type locality in Sri Lanka) ( Fig. 105e) and Gomalia jeanneli (Picard, 1949) (type locality in Kenya) ( Fig. 105a), and are genetically differentiated from them all at the species level ( Fig. 104), e.g., their COI barcodes differ by 1.7% (11 bp) from G. elma and by 5.6% (37 bp) from G. albofasciata . Therefore, these specimens represent a distinct species that we identified as Gomalia litoralis Swinhoe, 1885 (type locality Pakistan: Karachi), which is currently treated as a junior subjective synonym of G. albofasciata . Therefore, we propose that Gomalia litoralis Swinhoe, 1885 , stat. rest. is a valid species distinct from Gomalia albofasciata F. Moore, 1879 .