Systematics of the genus Zinaida Evans, 1937 (Hesperiidae: Hesperiinae: Baorini)

Abstract

Traditionally, species of the genus Zinaida were assigned to the genus Polytremis, until molecular evidence revealed that the former is a distinct genus. Nine species in Polytremis sensu Evans have since been removed and assigned to Zinaida; however, there is still uncertainty as to the taxonomic status of an additional seven Polytremis species. Moreover, the interspecific relationships within Zinaida have remained unresolved. To further investigate the taxonomic statuses and interspecific relationships within Zinaida, a molecular phylogeny of most species of Zinaida and its allies was inferred based on regions of the mitochondrial COI-COII and 16S and nuclear EF-1α genes (3006 bp). The results revealed that Zinaida is monophyletic and consists of four intra-generic clades that correspond to morphological characteristics. Clade A (Z. suprema group) consists of P. kiraizana, Z. suprema, and P. gigantea, with the latter two as sister species. Clade B (Z. nascens group) consists of seven species, and is the sister group of Clade C (Z. pellucida group), which comprises sister species Z. pellucida and Z. zina. In Clade B, Z. caerulescens and Z. gotama, and Z. theca and Z. fukia are sister species, respectively. On the basis of our molecular evidence and morphological features, we have moved P. gigantea, P. kiraizana, P. jigongi, and P. micropunctata to the genus Zinaida as new combinations. We review morphological characteristics and discuss the distribution of each of these groups in the light of our phylogenetic hypothesis, and provide a comprehensive taxonomic checklist.

Out of the Orient: Post‐Tethyan transoceanic and trans‐Arabian routes fostered the spread of Baorini skippers in the Afrotropics

“…We incorporated sequences of 47 additional Baorini species available on GenBank and the Barcode of Life Database, which were included in recent systematic studies of the tribe (Fan et al , ; Zhu et al , ; Tang et al , ). We included sequence data for the mitochondrial ribosomal 16S (533 bp), and nuclear ribosomal 18S (378 bp) and 28S (857 bp).…”

“…The other genera, Baoris Moore, Caltoris Swinhoe, Iton de Nicéville, Polytremis Mabille, Prusiana Evans, Pseudoborbo Lee, Tsukiyamaia Zhu, Chiba & Wu, Zinaida Evans and Zenonoida Fan & Chiba, are distributed from the Oriental region, including India, to the Australian region and some Pacific islands in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu (Braby, ). A few recent molecular systematic studies have clarified some phylogenetic relationships of Baorini (Jiang et al , ; Fan et al , ; Zhu et al , ; Li et al , ; Tang et al , ), but these studies included a relatively small number of loci (≤ 5) and species (≤ 50), and have been unable to confidently place genera, making it difficult to assess their biogeographic history. In the present study, we use a phylogenomic approach to sequence 13 gene fragments, including those most commonly used in butterfly phylogenetics (Wahlberg & Wheat, ).…”

Description of a new species of the genus Neopseustis Meyrick, 1909 from China, with a new classification of the genus (Lepidoptera, Neopseustoidea, Neopseustidae)

“…Five sequences belonging to three species of the genus Neopseustis and a sequence of Endoclita davidi (Poujade, 1886), which was used as the outgroup in our phylogenetic analysis, were downloaded from NCBI ( www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov ). The details of protocols for DNA extraction, amplification, and sequencing have been provided in previous publications ( Fan et al 2016 ; Tang et al 2017 ; Huang et al 2019 ). The sequences were aligned using Clustal W ( Thompson et al 1997 ) implemented in MEGA v. 7.0 ( Kumar et al 2016 ) with default parameters, and genetic distances were calculated using Kimura-2-parameter models implied by the same software.…”