Danaus petilia, (STOLL), 2005

Smith, David A. S., Lushai, Gugs & Allen, John A., 2005, A classification of Danaus butterflies (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) based upon data from morphology and DNA, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 144 (2), pp. 191-212 : 200

DANAUS PETILIA (STOLL)

The reinstated species D. petilia that inhabits Australia and Iryan Jaya/ Papua New Guinea (IR/ PNG) ( Lushai et al., 2005a) is less controversial than D. dorippus . Although crossable with D. chrysippus alcippus , with both F 1 and F 2 progenies viable and fertile in laboratory conditions ( Clarke, Sheppard & Smith, 1973), the two species are 100% diagnosable by morphological, mitochondrial and geographical criteria ( Lushai et al., 2005a) and do not mix in nature. The reinstatement of petilia , formerly a subspecies of D. chrysippus , as a species by Lushai et al. (2005a) is supported by mitochondrial ( Fig. 2A ), morphological ( Fig. 2B ) and total evidence phylogenies ( Fig. 3). In the mtDNA phylogeny ( Fig. 2A ), the petilia clade is sister to eresimus + gilippus , with the Old World Anosia cluster sister to petilia . This intriguing topology suggests the possibility of sequential speciation by westward dispersal from America ( eresimus + gilippus ) via Australasia ( petilia ) and then Asia (dorippus- 2 + bataviana and chrysippus s.s.) to Africa (dorippus- 2 and chrysippus s.s. + orientis + alcippus).

Figures

Figure 2. A, single most parsimonious tree based on amalgamated mtDNA 12S rRNA (344 bp†) and COI (676 bp†) genes (Appendix 2) for the genus Danaus, rooted by outgroups Tirumala septentrionis and T. limniace (†values before alignment). Tree statistics: characters in matrix 1025, variable informative characters 54, parsimony informative characters 139, heuristic search length 304, consistency index (CI) = 0.80, homoplasy index (HI) = 0.20, retention index (RI) = 0.81, rescaled consistency index (RCI) = 0.65. Bootstrap replicates/Bremer Support values are shown for each node where significant. Branch lengths are drawn proportional to nucleotide changes and indicated in parentheses. The MP topology depicted here is congruent with the MP strict consensus, NJ and ML algorithms not shown. ML branch significance is P <0.01 unless marked *. See Table 1 for provenances and sample sizes. B, single most parsimonious tree based on morphological, biochemical and colour gene characters (Appendix 1A, B) for the genus Danaus, rooted by outgroups T. septentrionis and T. limniace (characters from T. petiverana, T. hamata and T. ishmoides were used to fill gaps); †character alignment was fixed to character). Tree statistics: characters in matrix 67†, variable uninformative characters 8, parsimony informative characters 59, heuristic search length 95, CI = 0.84, HI = 0.16, RI = 0.90, RCI = 0.75. Other notes as in (A). C, one of 11 most parsimonious trees based on amalgamated nDNA 18S rRNA (525 bp†) and EF1-a (400 bp†) genes for the genus Danaus, rooted by outgroups Amauris niavius and A. ellioti (†values before alignment). Tree statistics: characters in matrix 926, variable uninformative characters 19, parsimony informative characters 24, heuristic search length 52, CI = 0.83, HI = 0.17, RI = 0.72, RCI = 0.60. Other notes as in (A).