Post by nomihoudai on Jun 2, 2011 14:36:55 GMT -8
In 1989 European Lepidoptology got stunned by the finding of a cryptic species within the well known Leptidea sinapsis. Real could show that there was a well distuingishable species, based on male gentitalia, hidden within the known L. sinapis. He named it Leptidea lorkovici ( an invalid homonyme to L. duponcheli lorkovici ) and it got named later by Reissinger in honor of Real as Leptidea reali. The new species had shattered distributions across Europe, of which a big part had been of Pyreneen and Mediterranian origin.
Confusing isn't it ?
Well in 2011 the situation seems not to get clearer.
Today I learned about an Interesting article by Dincă, V. et al.. In the article " Unexpected layers of cryptic diversity in wood white Leptidea butterflies " they report in the magazine nature communications of a third cryptic species in this complex!
Giving the essence of the article in short, using DNA analysis, they could show that the sister taxa L.reali and L. sinapsis had another sister species to these two species, which has been named as Leptidea juvernica . This new taxon which had been used for Irish populations of L. reali shows no morphological or genital difference to L. reali. It seems that the Pyreneen and Mediteranion L. reali are L. reali sensu lato and that there is no L. juvernica in that region. The other L. reali type specimens seem to be L. juvernica which itself has a higher chromosome number than the other taxon.
It seems that European Rhopalocera taxonomy will not come to rest even after 300 years of work, wether one likes it or not
This article should be of interest to any Lepidoptologist interested in European Pieridae and can be obtained at : www.nature.com/search/executeSearch?sp-q=LEptidea&sp-q-1=NCOMMS
Maybe some people will just trash their specimen now
I at least will ahve to make a new label...
Confusing isn't it ?
Well in 2011 the situation seems not to get clearer.
Today I learned about an Interesting article by Dincă, V. et al.. In the article " Unexpected layers of cryptic diversity in wood white Leptidea butterflies " they report in the magazine nature communications of a third cryptic species in this complex!
Giving the essence of the article in short, using DNA analysis, they could show that the sister taxa L.reali and L. sinapsis had another sister species to these two species, which has been named as Leptidea juvernica . This new taxon which had been used for Irish populations of L. reali shows no morphological or genital difference to L. reali. It seems that the Pyreneen and Mediteranion L. reali are L. reali sensu lato and that there is no L. juvernica in that region. The other L. reali type specimens seem to be L. juvernica which itself has a higher chromosome number than the other taxon.
It seems that European Rhopalocera taxonomy will not come to rest even after 300 years of work, wether one likes it or not
This article should be of interest to any Lepidoptologist interested in European Pieridae and can be obtained at : www.nature.com/search/executeSearch?sp-q=LEptidea&sp-q-1=NCOMMS Maybe some people will just trash their specimen now
I at least will ahve to make a new label...Attachments:
