Uraneis Bates, 1868

Zhang, Jing, Cong, Qian, Shen, Jinhui, Song, Leina & Grishin, Nick V., 2025, Advancing butterfly systematics through genomic analysis, The Taxonomic Report of the International Lepidoptera Survey 12 (5), pp. 1-201 : 28

Uraneis Bates, 1868 is a valid genus and Esthemopheles Röber, 1903 is its junior subjective synonym

Currently included within Thisbe Hübner, [1819] ( type species Papilio belise Stoll, 1782 , which is a junior subjective synonym of Papilio irenea Stoll, 1780 ), Uraneis Bates, 1868 ( type species Tharops hyalina Butler, 1867 ) and Esthemopheles Röber, 1903 ( type species Esthemopheles lamprolenis Röber, 1903 , currently treated as a junior subjective synonym of Uraneis ucubis Hewitson, 1870 ) are not monophyletic with it, instead forming a clade ( Fig. 23 red) sister to several genera ( Fig. 23 ). To restore the monophyly, we propose that Uraneis Bates, 1868 stat. rest. is a valid genus and not a synonym of Thisbe Hübner, [1819] . The type species of Uraneis and Esthemopheles are closely related to each other ( Fig. 23 red); e.g., their COI barcodes differ by 5.6% (37 bp), and, therefore, we keep Esthemopheles Röber, 1903 as a junior subjective synonym, but place it in synonymy with Uraneis Bates, 1868 and not with Thisbe Hübner, [1819] .

Figures

Fig. 23. Phylogenetic trees of selected Nymphidiini constructed from protein-coding regions in the nuclear genome (autosomes), based on 4,956,768 positions. Different genera are colored differently, and different subgenera are labeled in different colors: Parvospila (brown with subgenus Lucispila subgen. n. labeled in magenta), Zelotaea (green with subgenus Byzia subgen. n. labeled in pink), Aricoris (purple with subgenera Arichlosyne subgen. n. and Ariconias stat. nov. labeled in orange and gray, respectively), Lemonias (cyan with subgenus Thisbe stat. nov. labeled in bright purple), Uraneis stat. nov. (red), and Pachythone (blue with subgenera Pixus Callaghan, 1982, Lamphiotes Callaghan, 1982, Lenca subgen. n., and Pseudonymphidia stat. nov. labeled in maroon, dark blue, aquamarine, and olive, respectively). Ultrafast bootstrap (Minh et al. 2013) values are shown at nodes.