Tag: entomology

Beetle’s Best Friend: Trained dogs most efficient in monitoring hermit beetle larvae

Hermit beetles (Osmoderma eremita) are considered at risk, but in order to be effectively protected, they first need to be identified and consistently monitored.

However, this turns out to be a tough task, given that the species is only present for a short time as an adult while it is also extremely elusive. On the other hand, although it remains as a larva for up to three years, once again, it is difficult to spot as it hides inside hollow trees living in the wood mould.

The standard method for detecting hermit beetles involves wood mould sampling which is not only arguable in its overall efficiency, but is also unreasonably time-consuming and quite damaging to both the species communities and their habitat.

Searching for an alternative, Italian scientists, led by Dr. Fabio Mosconi of the Italian Agricultural Research Council and Sapienza University of Rome, suggested that trained dogs might be more successful. Such conservation detection dogs are currently being widely deployed when searching for mammals, reptiles and birds and have already been tested for locating a number of invertebrates.

In their paper, published in the open access journal Nature Conservation, the team tested a training programme before comparing it with the traditional method. The study has been conducted as part of the MIPP Project aimed at the development of non-invasive methods for monitoring selected saproxylic beetles.

Starting from the choice of a dog, the scientists carefully made their choice from a number of individuals as well as breeds. They settled on a Golden Retriever – a breed widely used in searches for biological targets. As for the particular dog, they chose Teseo – a six-month pup coming from a line with a strong background in locating illegally imported animals and animal parts.

The training of Teseo began with the assignment of a trainer/handler and some basic obedience training, involving teaching simple commands, search games and agility activities.

The next step was introducing the dog to various types of odours, since the hermit beetles might give off a different odour dependent on their habitats, such as the presence of fungi, sawdust and other organic materials. Immediately after detecting the target smell, the animal would be given a reward such as food or play, so that its behaviour could be positively reinforced.

Then, the dog was taught to differentiate between different odours. The researchers presented a number of targets to the animal where it needed to select the right one. At this stage, the dog was only rewarded for correct signalling. Should the dog be distant from the trainer, a special clicker was used to ‘announce’ the treat in advance. The researchers noted that it was at this stage when the relationship between the dog and the handler needed to be really strong, so that the training was as efficient as possible.

In conclusion, the scientists reported a significantly higher probability (73%) of Teseo successfully detecting a tree colonised by the larvae, as opposed to two people conducting the traditional wood mould sampling (34-50%). Moreover, the dog would cover a particular area in a very short time when compared to the traditional method – on average it would take it 6 minutes and 50 seconds to examine the whole tree, while the operators using wood mould sampling would need about 80 minutes. Additionally, searching for larvae with dogs poses no risk to either the insects or other organisms that might be living in the trees.

Furthermore, the researchers provided a list of precautions in order to increase the efficiency when searching for beetle larvae with the help of trained dogs. The list included familiarising the dog with the survey site beforehand, opting for the part of the day with the most favourable atmospheric conditions and carefully monitoring the dog for signs of fatigue.

“A conservation detection dog is a powerful tool for locating O. eremita and these results can be useful for other related European species of Osmoderma“, commented the scientists.

“In fact, the use of a trained dog is a fast, accurate and non-invasive method that allows the detection of a target species in an area and to identify the colonised trees; this means that a conservation detection dog can locate new populations, can confirm the presence of the target species and can assist in the mapping of colonised trees in an area, accurately and efficiently.”

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Original source:

Mosconi F, Campanaro A, Carpaneto GM, Chiari S, Hardersen S, Mancini E, Maurizi E, Sabatelli S, Zauli A, Mason F, Audisio P (2017) Training of a dog for the monitoring of Osmoderma eremita. In: Carpaneto GM, Audisio P, Bologna MA, Roversi PF, Mason F (Eds) Guidelines for the Monitoring of the Saproxylic Beetles protected in Europe. Nature Conservation 20: 237-264. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.20.12688

Special Nature Conservation issue: Monitoring protected insects in the European Union

A collection of thirteen research papers has been published to address the conservation of saproxylic beetles and other insects listed in the Habitats Directive

With biodiversity loss well underway, conservation measures are urgent on a global scale and the European Union is no exception. However, for efficient strategies and actions to be put in place, plenty of information, acquired primarily through monitoring, is needed to identify priorities for the conservation of threatened species, also for the elusive saproxylic insects, an ecological group of species that depends on dead wood.

Monitoring and conservation of elusive invertebrates is a particularly complex task, as shown in the papers comprising the special issue “Monitoring of saproxylic beetles and other insects protected in the European Union,” supported by the EU’s LIFE Programme and published in the open access journal Nature Conservation. This special issue was produced in the framework of the Life Project “Monitoring of insects with public participation” (LIFE11 NAT/IT/000252 MIPP) and is a direct result of a European Workshop held in Mantova in May, 2017.

Colonel Franco Mason, project manager of the MIPP project, notes that the European Workshop was aimed primarily at monitoring of saproxylic beetles. The project MIPP resulted in two special issues: “Monitoring of saproxylic beetles and other insects protected in the European Union” and “Guidelines for the Monitoring of saproxylic beetles and other insects protected in the European Union“. The first one is now available in the open access journal Nature Conservation.

*This is a female European stag beetle equipped with a radio transmitter in order to detect oviposition sites.*

“No knowledge exists of the success rate of monitoring elusive invertebrates,” writes Dr. Arno Thomaes, Research Institute for Nature and Forest, Belgium, and his team in their paper assessing the feasibility of monitoring the European stag beetle. Having conducted their analysis, though, the scientists conclude that, “monitoring of stag beetles is feasible and the effort is not greater than that which has been found for other invertebrates.”

Alessandro Campanaro, a researcher at the “Bosco Fontana” National Center of Carabinieri, highlights the fundamental role of Citizen Science as an essential tool for acquiring data on species, while simultaneously increasing the public awareness about Natura 2000 and the role of saproxylic species in forests.

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Additional information:

About the Life project MIPP

The main objective of the project MIPP is to develop and test methods for the monitoring of five beetle species listed in the Annexes II and IV of the Habitats Directive (Osmoderma eremita, Lucanus cervus, Cerambyx cerdo, Rosalia alpina, Morimus funereus).

New proposal for a subspecies definition triggered by a new longhorn beetle subspecies

The discovery of a new subspecies of longhorn beetle from Scandinavia triggered a discussion on the vague organism classification rank ‘subspecies’.

As a result, a newly proposed definition of subspecies has been published along with the description of the taxon in the open access journal ZooKeys by the research team of Henrik Wallin and Johannes Bergsten from the Swedish Museum of Natural History and Torstein Kvamme from the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research.

The northernmost populations of Saperda populnea display a number of divergent traits, including a shorter male antenna and reduced pubescens. In contrast with their most closely related subspecies (Saperda populnea populnea), whose favourite host plant, amongst others, is the European aspen, the new subspecies (Saperda populnea lapponica) specialised exclusively on downy willow (Salix lapponum).

According to the once no less disputed definition of species, regardless of their unique traits, populations cannot be considered as separate species until they are no longer able to produce fertile offspring according to the Biological Species concept, this being one of a number of proposed species concepts. A consensus is emerging around the unified species concept defining species as separately evolving (meta) population lineages.

However, differentiating between subspecies nowadays is a significantly tougher task, since there is no stable definition of the rank yet. Through the years, there have been various explanations of what a subspecies is and what criteria it needs to meet in order to be classified as one.

Compared to previous definitions, the researchers decode it quite simply. To them, the only necessary attributes a population needs to possess before being deemed a subspecies are that they are a potentially incipient new species; diagnosed by at least one heritable trait; and either partially or completely isolated geographically.

Furthermore, they refute a number of factors, including reciprocal monophyly in neutral markers, the “75% rule”, reproductive compatibility and the degree of gene flow.

The concept of subspecies has been so problematic that there have been even those scientists who have argued that taxonomy needs to discard it altogether.

However, the authors note that it is already formally recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN 1999), “albeit without giving any advice or criteria for its recognition.”

“The concept is more than a mere academic debate as subspecies are recognized in various Red Lists and conservation programs, and hence the recognition as a subspecies or not can have legal and monetary consequences.”

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Original source:

Wallin H, Kvamme T, Bergsten J (2017) To be or not to be a subspecies: description of Saperda populnea lapponica ssp. n. (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae) developing in downy willow (Salix lapponum L.). ZooKeys 691: 101-148. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.691.12880

Two new beetle genera and 4 new species from the Australopacific in a new monograph

An outstanding monograph of the Australopacific Region’s saprinine hister beetles supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

Amid his ongoing revisionary work on a number of hister beetle genera, the Slovakian-born naturalised Dutch entomologist and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation researcher, Dr. Tomáš Lackner, Bavarian State Collection of Zoology, together with fellow entomologist Dr. Richard Leschen, Landcare Research, discovered two new genera and a total of four new species from the Australopacific Region. The newly described endemic insects are featured in an extensive monograph published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Hister beetles, also known as Clown beetles because of their flattened legs, represent a quite diverse family (Histeridae) of beetles living almost everywhere around the world. Amongst their characteristic traits are their shiny metallic wings. Most of these beetles are predaceous and feed on larvae of other insects, including some pests. Occasionally, some species filter-feed on dung. Curiously, the Clown beetles tend to play dead when threatened.

While the hister beetle subfamily Saprininae is common and diverse throughout the globe, with only 40 species in nine native and three introduced genera, they are poorly represented in the Australopacific Region. This is one of the reasons the present discoveries documenting the new diversity in the group are remarkable.

The authors note that their scarcity in the area might be as a result of the long-standing isolation of the Australian continent in combination with the originally densely forested large islands like New Zealand and New Guinea.

However, “the Australopacific Region harbors several species with very interesting morphologies and ecologies,” point out the scientists.

Amongst the most impressive newly described saprinines, there is the first truly myrmecophilous species and genus (Iridoprinus myrmecophilus) known from the region, which is likely to be dependent on its co-habitation with ants. The beetle is only known from Australia where it has been collected from the nests of another species, endemic to the country – the Meat anSimilarly, the new histerid species Saprinus rarus is the first known termitophilous saprinine from the Australopacific Region and only the third in the subfamily as a whole. Found in the nest of the arboreal Tree termite, the species had been previously collected, but it has been so rare that it has not been determined as a new to science species until now. Hence, it earned the scientific name rarus as in ‘rare’.

In conclusion, the team noted the next challenge about the Australopacific saprinines – the genus Saprinodes which is not only restricted to Australia, but also has a life history shrouded in mystery. So far, it has only been collected from pitfalls and flight intercept traps.

For lead author Dr. Tomáš Lackner, this is the tenth in a line of studies focused on the world’s remarkable histerids published in ZooKeys.

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Original source:

Lackner T, Leschen RAB (2017) A monograph of the Australopacific Saprininae (Coleoptera, Histeridae). ZooKeys 689: 1-263. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.689.12021

About Alexander von Humboldt Foundation:

The Alexander von Humboldt foundation is an intermediary organisation for German foreign cultural and educational policy promoting international cultural dialogue and academic exchange. It offers flexible sponsorship programmes for researchers at all stages of their careers to enable outstanding scientists and scholars from abroad to complete long-term research stays in Germany.

Four new fruit fly species from the Himalaya and information about their flower visitation

The first record of flower visitation in a group of fruit flies from Himalayan India and a total of four new species are described in the open access journal ZooKeys. In their paper, scientists also revise the descriptions of all representatives of this genus (Lordiphosa) in India.

Following a number of observations in Nainital and Darjeeling, India, the team of Dr Rajendra S. Fartyal and Pradeep C. Sati, both affiliated with HNB Garhwal University, Sushmika Pradhan, and Rabindra N. Chatterjee of University of Calcutta, Prof. M.J. Toda of Hokkaido University, and Mukul C. Kandpal and Birendra K. Singh of Kumaon University conclude that two of the new species visit the flowers of spiked ginger lily and angel’s trumpet.

The distributional range of the genus stretches from the tropics of the Oriental to the subarctic of the Palearctic region, with the highest species richness in the subtropics of the Orient. However, these fruit flies have been thought to be poorly represented in India with only seven species recorded so far.

Until now, the fruit flies in the genus Lordiphosa have been known to breed on herbaceous plants. Their larvae are either leaf miners, or feed on decayed leaves and stems.

The specimens used in the present study have been collected from four different hill stations in the Himalayan region in India. These localities are covered with dense mixed-deciduous subtropical forests. They are characterised with extremely moist conditions due to the heavy rainfall during the summer monsoon season.

The authors note that one of the revised species, named L. neokurokawai, has an extraordinary type of sex comb — a male-specific morphological feature composed of thick comb-like structures and located on the foreleg. This adaptation is only seen in two fruit fly genera. It is used in a variety of ways in tactile interactions between males and females during both courtship and mating.

The scientists point out that this finding is important when considering the evolution of the sex comb in the genus Lordiphosa. It is suggested that the sex comb has once evolved in an ancestor of the genus, and proceeded to rapidly diversify through sexual selection. However, “this hypothesis requires further investigation,” the authors say.

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Original source:

Fartyal RS, Sati PC, Pradhan S, Kandpal MC, Toda MJ, Chatterjee RN, Singh BK, Bhardwai A (2017) A review of the genus Lordiphosa Basden in India, with descriptions of four new species from the Himalayan region (Diptera, Drosophilidae). ZooKeys 688: 49-79. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.688.12590

The Oriental eye fly that transmits conjunctivitis newly recorded in China

The conjunctivitis-transmitting Oriental eye fly (Siphunculina funicola) has been recorded for the first time in China. In the same paper, published in the open access journal ZooKeys, a team of three scientists further describe three species of the same genus, which are new to science.

The studied flies in the genus Siphunculina present a number of curious insects, including the grass flies and the Oriental eye fly – a species that transmits conjunctivitis and other eye diseases to both humans and domestic animals. As the larvae feed on faeces or thrive in decaying flesh, they can usually be found in bird nests, excrement or carcasses.

The scientists Dr. Xiaoyan Liu, Huazhong Agricultural University, China, Dr. Ding Yang, China Agricultural University and Dr. Emilia P. Nartshuk, Russian Academy of Sciences, collected the Oriental eye fly in Hainan, the southernmost province of China.

Previously, the species had been known to inhabit other countries in eastern and southern Asia, where the flies amass around people and cattle, causing considerable annoyance and spreading eye diseases.

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Original source:

Liu X-Y, Nartshuk EP, Yang D (2017) Three new species and one new record of the genus Siphunculina from China (Diptera, Chloropidae). ZooKeys 687: 73-88. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.687.13156

Gender dictates camouflage strategy in this newly identified praying mantis group

Adult females and males in a newly identified genus of Latin American praying mantises have evolved sharply different camouflage strategies, according to a Cleveland Museum of Natural History-led study published in the journal ZooKeys.

Adult males of the new genus retain the stubby, stick-like body configuration and brown coloration they have used as nymphs, whereas adult females, whose bodies grow to be considerably larger to maximize egg production, transform their appearance to mimic a leaf. They change to green, while their forewings become larger and more rounded compared to the male’s, with veins that simulate a leaf structure.

Although adult females are nearly two inches long, the members of this new mantis genus had escaped scientific recognition until recently, in part because the disparity in camouflage tactics made classification difficult.

This shrewdness inspired the name for the new mantis species: Hondurantemna chespiritoi. The genus name (Hondurantemna) derives from Honduras, where the first female specimen was found, in combination with Antemna, a Neotropical mantis to which the new lineage is closely related.

Meanwhile, the species name, chespiritoi, is a nod to the late Mexican comedian Roberto Gómez Bolaños, known as Chespirito, or Little Shakespeare. One of Bolaños’ TV characters, a goofy superhero called the Red Grasshopper, was fond of saying “¡No contaban con mi astucia!” — Spanish for “They didn’t count on my cleverness!” — when he defeated bad guys.

“I grew up watching that TV show in Brazil”, says the study’s lead author, Cleveland Museum of Natural History entomologist and Case Western Reserve University biology Ph.D. candidate Henrique Rodrigues.

“The first male specimen of the new mantis species was from Mexico, like Bolaños,” he explains. “And the signature line of Bolaños’ Red Grasshopper character kind of reminded me of the fact that you had this pretty large species of praying mantis that no one had found for many years.”

Adult female and male specimens of the mantis species were in separate museum collections in Paris, France and San Francisco, California, but had remained unidentified and their relationship unrecognized for more than two decades because of their dissimilar appearances.

Entomologist Julio Rivera, Ph.D., spotted the large green female mantis in the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris and brought it to the attention of Cleveland Museum of Natural History Curator of Invertebrate Zoology Gavin Svenson, Ph.D., an international expert on praying mantises. Dr. Svenson later saw the small brown male mantis in the California Academy of Sciences and noted that the two insects, though dissimilar in color and size, had body features that hinted they might be members of the same Antemninae sub-family.

Yet, adaptation to similar environments can cause unrelated organisms to develop similar features. This phenomenon, called convergent evolution, can complicate the process of sorting out connections on the praying mantis family tree.

Dr. Svenson is leading a research project to more accurately reclassify the massive praying mantis family tree using DNA testing and insights from the insects’ body form and features – their morphology. He has consolidated many of the country’s major mantis collections at the Cleveland museum, thus building the Western Hemisphere’s largest assemblage of the insects to aid this effort.

The final pieces of the puzzle that allowed the Cleveland researchers to identify the new mantis lineage arrived by chance. Neil Reid, Ph.D., a lecturer at Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, contacted Dr. Svenson, wondering if he wanted to examine a group of unknown praying mantises that Dr. Reid had gathered in a Honduran cloud forest.

The specimens Dr. Reid provided included two adult females and some male and female nymphs in various stages of development. The adult females looked the same as the female from the Paris museum. The male nymphs closely resembled the adult male from San Francisco. Having the nymphs let the researchers see the separate camouflage strategies the male and female mantises adopted as they matured.

Rodrigues conducted DNA tests that confirmed the mantises all represented the same genus and species, which had not been recognized before. The analysis also showed where this new mantis group, or taxon, fit on the complex mantis family tree: verifying that it belonged in the Antemninae subfamily.

“The recognition of H. chespiritoi shows the important role genetics can play in classifying insect relationships. It also highlights the value of museum collections,” Dr. Svenson says.

“When people ask us, ‘Why do you collect things?’, it’s because we still have a shockingly small concept of the biodiversity that’s out there,” Dr. Svenson says. “Museums are the places that hold that biological knowledge, and we’re pulling information out of them all the time.”

Original Source

Rodrigues HR, Rivera J, Reid N, Svenson GJ (2017) An elusive Neotropical giant, Hondurantemna chespiritoi gen. n. & sp. n. (Antemninae, Mantidae): a new lineage of mantises exhibiting an ontogenetic change in cryptic strategy. ZooKeys 680: 73-104. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.680.11162

New butterfly species discovered in Israel for the first time in 109 years

Vladimir Lukhtanov, entomologist and evolutionary biologist at the Zoological Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia, made a startling discovery: what people had thought was a population of a common species, turned out to be a whole new organism and, moreover – one with an interesting evolutionary history. This new species is named Acentria’s fritillary (Melitaea acentria) and was found flying right over the slopes of the popular Mount Hermon ski resort in northern Israel. It is described in the open access journal Comparative Cytogenetics.

“To me, it was a surprise that no one had already discovered it,” says Vladimir Lukhtanov.

“Thousands of people had observed and many had even photographed this beautifully coloured butterfly, yet no one recognised it as a separate species. The lepidopterists (experts in butterflies and moths) had been sure that the Hermon samples belonged to the common species called Persian fritillary (Melitaea persea), because of their similar appearance, but nobody made the effort to study their internal anatomy and DNA”.

In 2012, Vladimir Lukhtanov, together with his students, initiated an exhaustive study of Israeli butterflies using an array of modern and traditional research techniques. In 2013, Asya Novikova (until 2012, a master’s student at St. Petersburg University and, from 2013, a PhD student at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem) sampled a few fritillaries from Mt. Hermon.

It was at that time when the researchers noticed that the specimens “didn’t look right” – their genitalia appeared different from those of the typical Persian fritillary. Over the next few years, Lukhtanov and his students studied this population in-depth. They carried out sequencing DNA from the specimens and found that they had a unique molecular signature – very different from the DNA of any other fritillary.

The Acentria’s fritillary seems to be endemic in northern Israel and the neighbouring territories of Syria and Lebanon. Its evolutionary history is likely to prove interesting.

“The species is probably one of a handful of butterflies known to have arisen through hybridisation between two other species in the past,” says Lukhtanov. “This process is known to be common in plants, but scientists have only recently realised it might also be present in butterflies.”

This is the first new butterfly species discovered and described from the territory of Israel in 109 years.

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Original source:

Lukhtanov VA (2017) A new species of Melitaea from Israel, with notes on taxonomy, cytogenetics, phylogeography and interspecific hybridization in the Melitaea persea complex (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae). Comparative Cytogenetics 11(2): 325-357. https://doi.org/10.3897/CompCytogen.v11i2.12370

The Radiohead ant: A new species of ‘silky’ ant grows fungus gardens for food

The ants of the genus Sericomyrmex – literally translated as ‘silky ants’ – belong to the fungus-farming ants, a group of ants that have figured out how to farm their own food. The silky ants are the less well-known relatives of the famous leaf-cutter ants – well-studied, photogenic model organisms that you simply cannot avoid if you take a trip to the Neotropics.

For their study, now published in ZooKeys, Ana Ješovnik and Ted R. Schultz from the Smithsonian Institution‘s Ant Lab in Washington, D.C., collected silky ants from across their entire range in Central and South America, and revised the genus based on DNA sequence data and morphology. In the end, they turned out to have discovered three new species.

One of those species, Sericomyrmex radioheadi, collected in the Venezuelan Amazon, was named after the famous British music band Radiohead.

“We wanted to honor their music” one of the authors, Ana Ješovnik, says. “But more importantly, we wanted to acknowledge the conservation efforts of the band members, especially in raising climate-change awareness. ”

Using a scanning electron microscope, the authors found that the bodies of the ants are covered with a white, crystal-like layer. Curiously, this previously unknown layer is present in female ants (both workers and queens), but is entirely absent in males. Both the chemical composition and the function of this layer are unclear.

One possibility is that the layer is microbial in origin and that it has a role in protecting the ants and their gardens from parasites. This is interesting, because most of the fungus-farming ants cultivate antibiotic-producing bacteria on their bodies to protect their gardens from microbial weeds. In the meantime, in Sericomyrmex these bacteria are absent, yet their gardens are also parasite-free. Figuring out if this crystal-like layer has a role in protecting these ants’ fungus gardens might provide clues for managing diseases in human agriculture and medicine.

At only four million years, Sericomyrmex is an evolutionary youngster, the most recently evolved genus of fungus-farming ants, and an example of rapid radiation – comparable to other fast-evolving groups, such as the freshwater fishes in Africa, or the Hawaiian fruit flies.

Rapid radiation is a process in which organisms diversify quickly into a multitude of forms, making these ants good candidates for studies into speciation and evolution. In the present article, the authors acknowledge that some of the species they describe might, in fact, be multiple species that look alike, but because the ants are in the early stages of speciation, this is hard to detect.

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Original source:

Ješovnik A, Schultz TR (2017) Revision of the fungus-farming ant genus Sericomyrmex Mayr(Hymenoptera, Formicidae, Myrmicinae). ZooKeys 670: 1-109. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.670.11839

Origins of an enigmatic genus of Asian butterflies carrying mythological names decoded

A group of rare Asian butterflies which have once inspired an association with Hindu mythological creatures have been quite a chaos for the experts. In fact, their systematics turned out so confusing that in order to decode their taxonomic placement, scientists had to dig up their roots some 43 million years back.

Now, having shed new light on their ancestors, a team of researchers from the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario at University of Guelph, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and University of Vienna, published their findings in the open access journal Zoosystematics and Evolution.

Together, Drs. Valentina Todisco, Vazrick Nazari and Paul Hebert arrived at the conclusion that the enigmatic genus (Calinaga) originated in southeast Tibet in the Eocene as a result of the immense geological and environmental impact caused by the collision between the Indian and Asian subcontinents. However, the diversification within the lineage was far from over at that point. In the following epochs, the butterflies had to adapt to major changes when Indochina drifted away, leading to the isolation of numerous populations; and then again, when the Pleistocene climatic changes took their own toll.

To make their conclusions, the scientists studied 51 specimens collected from a wide range of localities spanning across India, South China, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand. For the first time for the genus, the authors conducted molecular data and combined it with an examination of both genitalia and wing patterns – distinct morphological characters in butterflies. While previous estimates had reported existence of anywhere between one and eleven species in the genus, the present study identified only four, while confirming how easy it is to mislabel samples based on earlier descriptions.

However, the researchers note that they have not sampled specimens from all species listed throughout the years under the name of the genus, so they need additional data to confirm the actual number of valid Calinaga species. The authors are to enrich this preliminary study in the near future, analysing both a larger dataset and type specimens in collaboration with the Natural History Museum of London that holds the largest Calinaga collection.

Despite being beautiful butterflies, the examined species belong to a genus whose name derives from the Hindu mythical reptilian creatures Nāga and a particular one of them – Kaliya, which is believed to live in Yamuna river, Uttar Pradesh, and is notorious for its poison. According to the Hindu myths, no sooner than Kaliya was confronted by the major deity Krishna, did it surrender.

“It seems that the modern taxonomy of Calinaga is in need of a Krishna to conquer these superfluous names and cleanse its taxonomy albeit after careful examination of the types and sequencing of additional material,” comment the authors.

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Original source:

Todisco V, Nazari V, Hebert PDN (2017) Preliminary molecular phylogeny and biogeography of the monobasic subfamily Calinaginae (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae). Zoosystematics and Evolution 93(2): 255-264. https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.93.10744