Tajuria bagus ( Kheil, 1884 )

Šumpich, Jan & Weidenhoffer, Zdeněk, 2025, A review of the types of Lycaenidae species (Lepidoptera) described by Napoleon Manuel Kheil deposited in the collection of the National Museum of the Czech Republic, Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae 65 (1), pp. 177-195 : 191-192

Tajuria bagus ( Kheil, 1884) stat. restit.

( Fig. 11)

Jolaus bagus Kheil, 1884: 31 , fig. 41 (original description).

Tajuria cippus bagus : FRUHSTORÞER (1912): 211 (new combination).

Tajuria cippus bagas [sic!]: SElTZ (1912–1927): 972 (taxonomic review); D’ABRERA (1986): 612 (taxonomic review); SAVELLA (2024) (taxonomic review).

Iolaus bagus : BECCALONl et al. (2003) (checklist).

Type material examined. HOLOTYPE: ♀ ( NMPC), ‘Nias [p] // Coll. N. Kheil [p] // Typus [p, red label] // Orig. [p, pink label] // ex coll. N. M. Kheil / Coll. National / Museum Prague [p] // Holotype ♀ / Jolaus bagus / Kheil, 1884 / labelled by J. Šumpich / & Z. Weidenhoffer, 2025 [p, red label] // Photo / Gen. prep. / J. Šumpich / 22/167 [p]’ ( Figs 11A–C).

Current status. Tajuria bagus ( Kheil, 1884) , stat. restit., valid species.

Distribution. Indonesia: Nias (KHElL 1884).

Remarks. Tajuria bagus belongs to the least known taxa described by N. M. Kheil. The holotype has not yet been studied by anyone, which resulted in both misidentifications of some Indonesian material in other collections (e.g., WlKlSPEClES 2019), but also its still unclear taxonomic status. FRUHSTORÞER (1912) considered bagus a subspecies of Tajuria cippus (Fabricius, 1798) but only based on the pattern of the underside of the wings presented in Kheil’s publication. Unfortunately, in print of Kheil’s publication, the yellow paint on hindwings merged with the black, creating an artifact that greatly complicated the correct identification of this species (KHElL 1884: fig. 41; Fig. 11C). The pattern on the underside of the wings of T. bagus is more similar to Pratapa deva (Moore, [1858]) than to T. cippus , but the appearance of the upper side is different from both named species and most resembles T. isaeus amardus Fruhstorfer, 1912 , also described from Nias (there are 14 specimens of both sexes in Kheil’s collection, cf. KHElL 1884). Due to its considerable differences from all nearby species, we consider T. bagus to be a good species.

In Kheil’s work (KHElL 1884), only the underside of the wings is depicted ( Fig. 11C), where the repair of the right hindwing is visible at higher magnification, while the other hindwing appears to be in its original, undamaged condition. For more details compare the photos of the holotype in Fig. 11A with Fig. 11B, where the arrows point to the repaired parts of the wings.