Koruthaialos frena Evans, 1949

Zhang, Jing, Cong, Qian, Shen, Jinhui & Grishin, Nick V., 2022, Taxonomic changes suggested by the genomic analysis of Hesperiidae (Lepidoptera), Insecta Mundi 2022 (921), pp. 1-135 : 39

Koruthaialos frena Evans, 1949 , new status

Described by Evans (1949) as a subspecies of Koruthaialos focula (Plötz, 1882) (type locality Java) from Malaysia: Mount Kinabalu, K. f. frena exhibits nuclear genomic differences in line with the species level ( Fig. 8 ). COI barcodes are 6.5% (43 bp) different between K. f. frena and K. focula from their type localities. Its secondary sexual characters are different from K. focula and more similar to Koruthaialos rubecula (Plötz, 1882) (type locality Malaysia: Kalimantan) ( Evans 1949). Therefore we propose to treat it as a species-level taxon: Koruthaialos frena Evans, 1949 , new status. Koruthaialos focula kerala de Nicéville, [1896] (type locality Indonesia: Sumatra) does not reveal strong genetic differentiation from the nominotypical subspecies ( Fig. 8 ) and its secondary sexual characters are similar to it. Therefore no change of status is proposed for K. f. kerala.

Figures

Figure 8. Genomic tree of Heteropterinae Aurivillius, 1925, some Old World Hesperiinae and relatives. See Fig. 1 legend for notations.