Paches (Paches) gloriosus Röber, 1925

Zhang, Jing, Cong, Qian & Grishin, Nick V., 2023, Supplementary Materials and Appendix, Insecta Mundi 2023 (26), pp. 1-115 : 38

Paches (Paches) gloriosus Röber, 1925 and Paches (Paches) loxana Evans, 1953 are species distinct from Paches (Paches) loxus (Westwood, 1852)

Genomic sequencing reveals that Paches gloriosus Röber, 1925 (type locality not given, holotype sequenced as NVG-18094E01) and Paches loxus loxana Evans, 1953 (type locality in Bolivia) currently regarded as subspecies of Paches loxus (Westwood, 1852) (type locality not given, possibly in Venezuela) are genetically differentiated from each other at the level characteristic of species ( Fig. 3): e.g., COI barcodes of P. loxus and P. l. loxana differ by 3% (20 bp). Curiously, despite the strong genetic differentiation of P. gloriosus in the Z chromosome from all other taxa in this complex ( Fig. 3a), it is more similar to P. loxus in the mitochondrial genome ( Fig. 3b): COI barcode difference of 0.9% (6 bp). Due to phenotypic differences accompanied by genetic differentiation, we reinstate Paches (Paches) gloriosus Röber, 1925 as a species and propose a new status of species for Paches (Paches) loxana Evans, 1953 .