Fossil butterflies, calibration points and the molecular clock (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea)
Jong, Rienk De
Zootaxa
2017
4270
1
1
63
[151,299,404,430]
Insecta
Lycaenidae
Lycaenites
GBIF
Animalia
Lepidoptera
27
28
Arthropoda
species
gabbroensis
Italy, Tuscany, Gabbro (near Pisa); late Miocene. Depository: NHMW (holotype, 1898/0013/0005; counterpart holotype, 1898/0013/0006). Published figures: Murata (1998: Fig. 37); Rebel (1898: Pl. I Figs 5, 7). A very badly preserved small insect. As correctly stated by Rebel, the strongly bent subcosta (Rebel: costa) of the hindwing shows that it is a butterfly and not a broad-winged moth. For the rest of the hindwing venation is so faulty that I have little confidence in Rebel’s reconstruction (Pl. I Fig. 7), which, moreover, does not agree with his habitus drawing (Pl. I Fig. 5). Because of its size (forewing length 11 mm) and absence of a precostal vein (=humeral vein) in the hindwing, Rebel assigned the fossil to the Lycaenidae. In the description it is stated that a radial fork distally of the cell is visible in the forewing and prominent in the reconstructed wing venation, although not in the drawing of the habitus of the fossil. Consequently, the fossil cannot belong to the Hesperiidae. Moreover, the head is smaller than the thorax, which in Hesperiidaeis only known from the strictly American Megathymusgroup ( Hesperiinae), of which the extant species are much bigger and built much more heavily. Among further extant butterflies only Pieridae, in particular Euremaspecies, can approach consideration for an assignment in view of its small size. However, in EuremaM1 branches off the common stem of R3+R4 (see, e.g., Jeratthitikul et al. 2009), while in the reconstruction of Rebel, the origin of M1 is far apart from the origin of this common stem. The conclusion that the fossil apparently belongs to the Lycaenidae, is not very helpful in terms of divergence time of the family, since older fossils of the sister group, Riodinidae, are known and even assignable to extant genera.
1503739222
[199,748,510,535]
Italy
Tuscany
27
28
1
Tuscany