Subject Editor: Sven Erlacher
In his outstanding revision of European
Three years after the publication of Mironov’s monograph,
The study is based on more than 250 specimens of
The taxa were delimited on the basis of combining data from various sources: morphology, bionomy (mainly phenology, partly vertical distribution) and DNA barcodes. The genitalia and the abdomens were prepared following methods described by
For the DNA barcoding analyses, one or two legs were removed from each dried specimen and transferred to lysis plates. DNA extraction, amplification, and sequencing of the barcode region of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I (
We used DNA aliquots that were extracted at the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding (
To infer maximum likelihood (
To check for the presence of bacterial parasite
(Fig.
Adults (females).
Male genitalia.
In external appearance (wing shape, wing coloration, pattern), the newly attributed populations of
Recorded in central Italy (locus typicus: Maiella mountains; Mt. Terminillo), Pyrenees, French Alps, and in a section of the central part of the Alps with records, so far, restricted to eastern and northern Tyrol (Austria) and to southernmost Bavaria (Germany), as a sympatric, sibling species of
Univoltine, the two central Italian records are from mid-July and late July, in the Pyrenees and French Alps the species flies from early July to early August. The remaining records from the Alps, however, refer to much earlier dates, from mid-April to late May, the single specimen from eastern Tyrol in mid-June and specimens from northern Italy in late June. Therefore, when occurring sympatrically,
The larval stages are unknown. Larvae of the sister species
Montane. Collected on karstic slopes at 2500 m in the Maiella and 1800 m on Mt. Terminillo. In French Alps and Pyrenees from 1500 m up to 2100 m and in northern Italy (Adamello) occurring at 2450 m. In the Bavarian and Austrian Alps collected from much lower elevations in valleys from 1000 m up to 1300 m (Bavaria; northern Tyrol) (n = 29) with only one specimen from eastern Tyrol recorded at 1700 m, while the vertical distribution of sympatric
Female genitalia.
Details of female genitalia: Signum.
We generated a genome-wide set of genetic clusters from 8 individuals of
The shape and pattern of the wings of the barcoded, Central Italian female collected at Monte Terminillo (just 100 km from the type locality of
Maximum likelihood trees inferred from the ddRAD data matrices based on (
The discovery of a cryptic species of
We are very grateful to the staff at the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding for sequence analysis. Paul D.N. Hebert, Evgeny Zakharov and many other colleagues of the Barcode of Life project (Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, Guelph, Canada) contributed to the success of this study. The data management & analysis system