Telegonus fulminator (Sepp, [1841])

Zhang, Jing, Cong, Qian & Grishin, Nick V., 2023, Thirteen new species of butterflies (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae) from Texas, Insecta Mundi 2023 (969), pp. 1-58 : 15

Telegonus fulminator (Sepp, [1841]) is a species distinct from Telegonus fulgerator (Walch, 1775)

Papilio fulminator Sepp, [1841] was placed in synonymy with Telegonus fulgerator (Walch, 1775) by Godman and Salvin (1893) and kept at this status since. Genomic sequencing of the neotypes of both taxa, both from Suriname, and their analysis together with other specimens of Telegonus reveal that they are not monophyletic in the nuclear genome tree ( Fig. 10a purple and orange) and distinct at the level typical of other related species. They differ phenotypically in that P. fulminator hindwing is with a pair of more clearly defined darker bands and smaller white basal area near costa beneath, more extensive greenish overscaling above, and more conspicuously checkered fringes ( Fig. 9 ). Therefore, we reinstate Telegonus fulminator (Sepp, [1841]) as a species-level taxon. However, COI barcodes of the neotypes of these two sympatric species differ by only 0.5% (3 bp) indicating that barcodes do not always diverge strongly between some Telegonus species, which is consistent with previous findings (these species were previously placed in Astraptes Hübner, [1819] ) ( Hebert et al. 2004).

Figures

Figure 9. Telegonus primary types. a) Telegonus fulgerator original illustrations of the holotype (now lost), rotated from the original, labels (2.a. and 2.b.) repositioned on the images. b) Telegonus fulgerator neotype ♀ NVG-18057D11 from Suriname in ZSMC. c) Telegonus fulminator neotype ♀ NVG-18057D08 from Suriname in ZSMC, designated herein. d) Telegonus azul lectotype ♀ NVG-15099B05 from Mexico: Veracruz in CMNH, designated herein. Dorsal (above each panel label) and ventral (below each panel label) views are shown.

Figure 10. Trees of Telegonus fulgerator complex constructed from protein-coding regions in a) Z chromosome and b) mitochondrial genome: T. tsongae sp. n. (red), T.misitra (blue), T. catemacoensis (cyan), T. azul (green), T. fulgerator (purple), and T. fulminator (orange) among their relatives (black). Primary type specimens are labeled in magenta and paralectotype of T.misitra in olive. See Fig. 1 legend for other notations.