Lasaia peninsularis Clench, 1972

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 : 22-23

Lasaia peninsularis Clench, 1972 is a species distinct from Lasaia sula Staudinger, 1888

Genomic analysis reveals that Lasaia sula peninsularis Clench, 1972 (type locality Mexico: Yucatán, Pisté) is genetically differentiated from Lasaia sula Staudinger, 1888 (type locality in Honduras) at the level characteristic of distinct species ( Fig. 21) with Fst / Gmin /COI barcode difference of 0.52/0.005/1.5% (10 bp), with the barcode difference computed between lectotypes of both names. Therefore, we propose that Lasaia peninsularis Clench, 1972 , stat. nov. is a species distinct from Lasaia sula Staudinger, 1888 .

Although traditionally treated as distinct (and monophyletic) genera for more than 170 years, Lyropteryx Westwood, 1851 (type species Lyropteryx apollonia Westwood, 1851 ) and Necyria Westwood, 1851 (type species Necyria bellona Westwood, 1851 ) are genetically ( Fig. 21) and phenotypically close. COI barcodes of their type species differ by 2.7% (18 bp), which is typical for closely related sister species, not different genera, and both genera are characterized by lyre- or harp-like wing patterns resulting from metallic overscaling between the veins complemented with red spots or stripes. A novice cannot easily assign a species to a genus by wing patterns. For all these reasons, we propose to treat these monophyletic groups as subgenera. Necyria and Lyropteryx were proposed in the same work issued on the same day (Westwood 1851), and being the first revisers, we give precedence to Lyropteryx because this name is more descriptive of a butterfly appearance: its wing (πτέρυξ - pteryx) resembles the musical instrument lyre (λύρα - lyra). Therefore, we propose that Necyria Westwood, 1851 , stat. nov. is a subgenus of Lyropteryx Westwood, 1851 .