Phylogeography of Koramius charltonius (Gray, 1853) (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae): A case of too many poorly circumscribed subspecies

Abstract

Koramius charltonius (Gray, 1853) (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) is distributed in the mountains of Central Asia. We analysed genetic and phylogeographic patterns throughout the western part of its range using a mitochondrial marker (COI). We also analysed the wing pattern using multivariate statistics. We found that the species contains several unique haplotypes in the west and shared haplotypes in the east. The haplotype groups do not correspond to the wing pattern and also the described subspecies do not correspond to either the haplotypes or the groups circumscribed by the wing pattern. Currently, there are more than ten subspecies of K. charltonius in Central Asia; based on our analyses we suggest a reduction to only five of them. The following nomenclatural changes are applied: (1) K. charltonius aenigma Dubatolov & Milko, 2003, syn. n., K. charltonius sochivkoi Churkin, 2009, syn.n., and K. charltonius alrashid Churkin & Pletnev, 2012, syn. n. are new synonyms of K. charltonius romanovi (Grum-Grshimailo, 1885); (2) K. charltonius marusya Churkin & Pletnev, 2012, syn. n., K. charltonius eugenia Churkin, 2009, syn. n., K. charltonius anjuta Stshetkin & Kaabak, 1985, syn. n., and K. charltonius mistericus Kaabak, Sotchivko & Titov, 1996, syn. n. are new synonyms of K. charltonius vaporosus (Avinov, 1913); and (3) K. charltonius safronovi Korb, Shaposhnikov, Zatakovoy & Nikolaev, 2013, syn. n. is a new synonym of K. charltonius voigti (Bang-Haas, 1927).