Bhutanitis Atkinson, 1873

Introduction

The genus Bhutanitis has four recognized species distributed from northern India and China to Thailand (Häuser et al., 2005). All four species have been protected by law for a long time (Collins and Morris, 1985; Coote, 2000), although recently only two of these species (B. ludlowi and B. mansfieldi) are listed by IUCN as vulnerable or data deficient (IUCN, 2004; UNEP-WCMC, 2006).

Discussion of Phylogenetic Relationships

A recent molecular study (Zhu et al., 2005) investigates the phylogenetic relationships among the species of Bhutanitis using sequences of COI mitochondrial gene, and provides evidence for synonymy of the taxon Bhutanitis mansfieldi pulchristrata with nominal B. m. mansfieldi. Nazari et al. (2007) provide further evidence for the phylogeny of Bhutanitis species based on a much larger dataset of molecular and morphological characters.

Nomenclature

Blanchard (1871) described the species thaidiana under new genus Armandia. The generic name Armandia Blanchard, 1871 is invalid as it is a junior homonym of Armandia Filippi, 1862 (Hemming, 1967). Atkinson (1873) described the species lidderdalii under a new genus Bhutanitis.

After the description of Armandia mansfieldi by Riley in 1939, based on an unlabeled specimen from China, doubts were raised as to whether this new species belonged to Bhutanitis since it apparently shared many morphological characters with Luehdorfia. In 1980 Hiura described a new genus, Yunnanopapilio (Type species: B. mansfieldi). Based on genitalic characters, Yunnanopapilo was later synonymized with Bhutanitis (Saigusa and Lee, 1982). Further evidence on the life history of B. mansfieldi supported this decision (Igarashi, 2003). Lee (1986) uses the generic names Yunnanitis and Sinonitis for B. mansfieldi and B. thaidiana with no reference to their authorship and publications. Since these names do not seem to be indicated anywhere else, they are treated as numina nuda here.

References

Atkinson, W.S., 1873. Description of a new genus and species of Papilionidae from the south-eastern Himalayas. Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1873: 570-572.

Blanchard, E., 1871. Remarques sur la faune de la principauté thibétaine du Moupin. C.r.hebd. Séanc. Acad. Sci., Paris, 72: 807-813.

Collins, N.M., Morris, M.G., 1985. Threatened Swallowtail Butterflies of the World: The IUCN Red data book. Gland, Switzerland. 401 pp.

Coote, L., 2000. CITES identification guide - Butterflies: Guide to the Identification of Butterfly Species Controlled Under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Ottawa: Canadian Wildlife Service.

Häuser, C.L., de Jong, R., Lamas, G., Robbins, R.K., Smith, C., Vane-Wright, R.I., 2005. Papilionidae – revised GloBIS/GART species checklist (2nd draft). Accessed December 2005.

Hemming, A.F., 1967. The generic names of the butterflies and their type-species (Lepidoptera: Rhopalocera). Bull. Br. Mus. Nat. Hist. Ent. Suppl. 9: 509 pp.

Hiura, I., 1980. A phylogeny of the genera of Parnassiinae based on analysis of wing pattern, with description of a anew genus (Lepiopdtera: Papilionidae). Bulletin of the Osaka Museum of Natural History 33: 71-85.

Igarashi, S., 2003. Life history of Bhutanitis mansfieldi in comparison with those of related species. Butterflies (Publication of the Butterfly Society of Japan), 35:20-39.

IUCN red list of threatened species 2004. Accessed January 2006.

Lee, C., 1986. First report on the life histories and phylogenetic position of two Chinese Papilionidae, Bhutanitis mansfieldi and B. thaidiana. Yadoriga 126: 17-21.

Nazari, V., Zakharov, E.V., Sperling, F.A.H., 2007. Phylogeny, historical biogeography, and taxonomic ranking of Parnassiinae (Lepidoptera, Papilionidae) based on morphology and seven genes. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 42: 131-156.

Riley, N.D., 1939. A new species of Armandia (Lep. Papilionidae). Entomologist 72: 207-208.

Saigusa, T., Lee, C., 1982. A rare papilionid butterfly Bhutanitis mansfieldi (Riley), its rediscovery, new subspecies and phylogenetic position. Tyô to Ga 33: 1-24.

UNEP-WCMC species database, 2006. Accessed January 2006.

Zhu, L.X., Wu, X.B., Yan, P., 2005. Molecular phylogenetic relationships among four species of Bhutanitis (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) based on partial COI gene sequence. Acta Zootaxonomica Sinica 31: 25-30.