Hesperia (Battus) cuzcona Draudt, 1923

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 : 151

Hesperia (Battus) cuzcona Draudt, 1923 is confirmed as a subspecies of Chirgus (Chirgus) bocchoris (Hewitson, 1874) , but is frequently misidentified

Genomic analysis of the lectotype of Hesperia (Battus) cuzcona Draudt, 1923 (type locality in Peru: Cuzco, sequenced as NVG-18093A12) places it within specimens of Chirgus (Chirgus) bocchoris bocchoris (Hewitson, 1874) (type locality in Bolivia) and away from several specimens from Cuzco in Peru that we identified as “ Chirgus bocchoris cuzcona ” using Evans (1953) ( Fig. 109). Neither the Z chromosome ( Fig. 109b) nor the mitochondrial DNA trees ( Fig. 109c) reveal overall genetic differentiation between H. cuzcona lectotype and C. bocchoris bocchoris , suggesting that they are conspecific. However, the nuclear genome tree places the lectotype as sister to all other sequenced specimens of C. bocchoris bocchoris (none from Peru), implying some genetic uniqueness of Peruvian populations. Therefore, we propose to keep Hesperia (Battus) cuzcona Draudt, 1923 , as a subspecies of Chirgus (Chirgus) bocchoris (Hewitson, 1874) pending further research. Curiously, the original description (English version) of H. cuzcona states: “wings … above the white spots are a little more prominent … the spot of the hindwing oblong quadrangular” (Draudt 1923), consistently with the wing pattern of the lectotype ( Fig. 109) and the wing pattern of C. bocchoris , but contrary to how H. cuzcona was described (and consequently misidentified) later: “Uph more or less unmarked” (Evans 1953). Specimens from the Andes of Peru with unmarked hindwings that Evans (1953) misidentified as “ Pyrgus bocchoris cuzcona ” represent two new species that are described next.