Mistaken identity

[Tony Moore]

https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/scien ... t-species/

I thought this interesting, and worth a read.

Tony M.

[MikeOxon]

Fascinating! DNA analysis is shaking up our ideas of what constitutes a 'species' quite a bit.

[David M]

Thanks for sharing that, Tony. If I remember rightly, the female Brown Hairstreak was, for a long time, considered to be a separate species from the male. Given how rarely these insects are seen pairing, I suppose that was understandable all those years ago.

[Padfield]

One also suspects that someone was a little hasty in naming the 'new species'! It is surprising how many species of butterfly are named on the strength of a single specimen. In this case, the male was well known. It is illustrated in D'Abrera along with the comment, 'I have not seen a female'. So when a female euptychiine butterfly is caught that clearly doesn't match any of the known females, you would have thought it prudent to hold off naming it until it had been established not to be the missing female of the unmatched male.

That said, there are undoubtedly a great number of species yet to be discovered in South America, so perhaps the the initial presumption was understandable.

Guy

[Pete Eeles]

I'm also amazed that the male and female were placed in different genera - one would assume that the physical characteristics would have placed them in the same genus at least!

Cheers,

- Pete