Graphium has expanded?

[Banded Yeoman]

Hi, I read somewhere that the Fivebar Sword tail is :

No longer pathysa aniphates, but graphium antiphates!

I do not know how much of it is true, but if it is, why?
Why was it re- classified?

... ... And if pathysa has been merged into graphium, would paranticopsis or other swallowtails be merged into graphium???


In Mr Isaac Kehimkar's book, he in fact does refer to these butterflies as graphiums. The zebras, and the swordtails.
I hope the experts here can answer my question or give their opinions here. :)

[Commander]

Apparently so, if you read the Natural History Museum of London site. Where there have been a number of updates to the genera besides Graphium/Pathysa.

[atronox]

There is a parallel situation occuring among the Neotropical Leptocircini.

Until recently, all species were grouped under the genus Eurytides but some suggest that there are indeed more genera involved.

But if Eurytides/Pathysa calls for reclassification, then what about the huge genus Papilio? This genus(as can already be seen amongst the local species) contains a very heterogenous lot of species and definitely is in more urgent need of revision than Pathysa/Graphium.

Although some have divided Papilio into subgenera(Heraclides, Achillides etc.), for some reason that i do not know (someone pls enlighten me), most people prefer to leave them as the large genus Papilio.

I personally feel that the Graphium and Pathysa are distinct as Graphium are not distinctly tailed (although some like codrus, empedovana, stresemanni are, they still have the "typical" Graphium wingshape) whereas Pathysa are always tailed.

[Great Mormon]

Is this the article from NHM?

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/research/projects/afrotropical-kite/higher_classification.html

[Commander]

For your information. In the world of biology, the lumpers and splitters have always swung from one end of the pendulum to the other. If you've observed, Pisuth's Vol 1 of the Butterflies of Thailand and C&P4 both had the "nine-family" convention, where Danaidae, Satyridae and so on, are classified as full families. I used the more recent "five-family" convention where Nymphalidae is a higher family and Danainae, Satyrinae and so on are sub-families under Nymphalidae.

I was told that Pisuth is using this "five-family" convention in Vol 2 of his soon-to-be-released book.

In plant taxonomy, names also change very often. For example, what we used to call "Eugenia" (of the jambu family) is now split into Syzygium and Eugenia.

Hence, changes will always occur from time to time, as new postulations and research evidence indicate earlier conventions to be erroneous or inaccurate.

Anyway, for those interested, you can go and read the Lepindex of the NHM and dive into the world of taxonomic classification. :)

From: George Beccaloni <G.Beccaloni@nhm.ac.uk>
To:
Cc: Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2011 1:36 AM
Subject: Updated version of LepIndex now available

We would like to let the Lepidoptera community know that the London Natural History Museum's Global Lepidoptera Names Index (LepIndex) online database (see http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/research/projects/lepindex/ (http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/research/projects/lepindex/)) has just been updated, thanks to the efforts of Ian Kitching, Thomas Simonsen, Adrian Hine, Chris Lyal, Justin Ollerenshaw and Peter Wing (see http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/research/projects/lepindex/people.html (http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/research/projects/lepindex/people.html)).

All information missing from databasefields relating to the current valid scientific name of a taxon were filled in using information from the index card images or the literature. A number of corrections were also made to the taxonomy, including all those that users had kindly informed us of since 2005.About 2 person-years of hard work (largely by Justin & Peter) have been invested in this upgrade.

Just to remind you
what LepIndex is:-
LepIndex is a digitised and updated version of the unique index card archive to the scientific names of the living and fossil butterflies and moths of the world at the Natural History Museum (London). This card index was produced by the museum’s lepidopterists over many decades and contains about 95% of all currently valid Lepidoptera names (15,578 genus and 157,474 species names in total), together with synonyms, misspellings and misidentifications.

************************************************** **************************
Dr George Beccaloni
Curator of orthopteroid insects (cockroaches [including termites], mantids, earwigs, stick insects, grasshoppers, crickets etc) & Director of the A. R. Wallace Correspondence Project (http://wallaceletters.info/ (http://wallaceletters.info/)), Entomology Department,

The Natural History Museum,
Cromwell Road,
South Kensington,
London SW7 5BD, UK.
Tel. +44 (0)20 7942 5361
Fax. +44 (0)20 7942 5229
My Web CV:-
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/staff-directory/entomology/cv-3534.html (http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/staff-directory/entomology/cv-3534.html)

[Psyche]

As far as the genera Papilio & Graphium go, most taxonormists are in general consensus to use these two in a wider sense.

In Graphium, the structural characters of the adults & their early stages are very similar, and only their superficial appearances differ markedly.

In the case of Papilio, although the adults are similar structurally, the early stages do differ in some cases, & the groups can be quite disparate.

Consider our local swallowtails. demoleus, demolion, memnon, polytes, iswara, & prexaspes.
The differences look so marked that the first five could be assigned to different genera.( In fact, demoleus is sometimes assigned to Princeps & the others to Menelaides.)
However, their early stages are very similar & show their close relationship.
The last one P. prexaspes looks like a Helen (helenus group), but the adult does not have the androconia of helenus and the early stages show it properly belongs to the Achillides group (paris, karna, palinurus).

There are other such ambiguous groups and when you include bewildering forms from Africa & America, it can be daunting. Perhaps for practical consideration, Papilio is retained as it is. A name like Princeps demoleus is not going to be helpful as it might draws a blank to what it is ie. a swallowtail.

Finally there is no law to prevent you from using what you feel is the right name. After all the taxonomists themselves are rarely in full agreement.

TL Seow:cheers:

[Painted Jezebel]

Finally there is no law to prevent you from using what you feel is the right name. After all the taxonomists themselves are rarely in full agreement.

TL Seow:cheers:

Absolutely!

The same problem with Parides, Atrophaneura, Byasa, Pachliopta and Losaria.

If I had to change the names on my site everytime a taxonomist wanted to alter things, I would spend all my time on that instead of the more important thing, for me, of looking for new species. How Yutaka manages to keep up to date, I have no idea, I am in awe!

A few years ago, I had a similar problem on my Delias site. The majority of species are found on the Island of New Guinea. Half of this Island is part of Indonesia, and when I set up the site, it was called Irian Jaya. Since then, it has been West Papua and then just Papua. What it is now, I have no idea, but I have retained the original, Irian Jaya, on the site. It is the same place, whatever it is called.