Parnassius corybas, correct name for P. phoebus

[Adam Cotton]

I was asked to explain about this taxon name in a private e-mail; and since it is complicated and rather important I thought I would also post the information here:


Hanus & Theye (2010) published the discovery that the illustrated type specimen of what everyone calls Parnassius phoebus (Fabricius, 1793) was actually a specimen of the species known as P. ariadne. Instead of petitioning the ICZN Commission to maintain the long term usage of the names, in a 2011 paper they subsequently designated a neotype for the lost type, thus fixing the name Parnassius phoebus (Fabricius, 1793) as the senior synonym and valid name for the species everyone has called P. ariadne for a long time.

The next available name for the species everyone has always called Parnassius phoebus is Parnassius corybas Fischer von Waldheim, 1823 (type locality Kamchatka), and this becomes the valid species name. The authors also state that the name for the Altai subspecies (previously P. phoebus phoebus is correctly Parnassius corybas altaicus Shepard & Manley, 1998. The only other old name for the Altai taxon, altaicus Ménétriés, 1859, is infrasubspecific and thus unavailable, but Shepard & Manley validated the name in a Code compliant manner and thus author and year must be attributed to their publication.

If anyone wants copies of the 2 papers e-mail me on adamcot at cscoms com and I can send them.

Adam.


Hanus, J., & M.-L. Theye. Parnassius phoebus (Fabricius, 1793), a misidentified species (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae). Nachr. entomol. Ver. Apollo, N. F. 31 (1/2): 71–84

Hanus, J., & M.-L. Theye. Supplements to "Parnassius phoebus (Fabricius, 1793), a misidentified species" (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae). Nachr. entomol. Ver. Apollo, N. F. 32 (1/2): 25-27

[Adam Cotton]

There is actually another name for P. corybas from the Altai area, halasicus Huang & Murayama, 1992 (type locality: Halasi, Altai, Xinjiang), and if this is the same as altaicus then it would have priority as subspecies name. This needs checking further since it is possible that the population on the Xinjiang side of Altai could be different to that of the Russian side.

Adam.

[Adam Cotton]

To clarify for those readers who may not quite understand the significance of the above, here is a summary:

Parnassius phoebus is the correct name for P. ariadne, which is a junior synonym of phoebus.

Parnassius corybas is the correct name for what we always called phoebus.

The subspecies of P. corybas from Russian Altai is either altaicus Shepard & Manley, 1998 or halasicus Huang & Murayama, 1992 if corybas from both sides of the Altai mountains is the same. That needs more checking.


This is of course most unfortunate, and while the first paper corrects a very longstanding error it would probably have been better to apply to the ICZN Commission to preserve 100% prevailing usage by asking the Commission to designate a neotype which corresponds to the usage in all modern literature, rather than taking the action the authors did. In fairness they did ask the opinion of at least one ICZN Commissioner before taking action, and he approved of their choice despite the short term confusion it would cause.

It would actually still be possible for an application to be made to the ICZN to reverse the action in the second paper and designate a new neotype which corresponds to current usage, but in reality this will a) probably not happen, and b) the Commission could well decide to reject the application in favour of the published action. Probably the world will just have to learn to live with the new names.

Adam.

[wollastoni]

And what about Parnassius sacerdos ?

[bobw]

They keep sacerdos as a good species. I discussed this quite a lot with Jean Hanus during his research for the paper; he also discussed the implications with Gerardo Lamas and it was thought to be the correct thing to do despite the short-term confusion it might cause.

The current arrangement for the "complex" according to Hanus is:

P. corybas
- P. corybas corybas
- P. corybas altaicus
- P. corybas bremeri
- P. corybas rueckbeili
P. smintheus
P. behrii
P. sacerdos

Bob

[wollastoni]

"sacerdos" being the NA "phoebus" which is now called "corybas" ?

I think we need a clear map with the taxa you are listing Bob, for us non-specialist to better understand.

[Adam Cotton]

Jan 23, 2017 16:27:10 GMT wollastoni said:

"sacerdos" being the NA "phoebus" which is now called "corybas" ?

I think we need a clear map with the taxa you are listing Bob, for us non-specialist to better understand.

No, Parnassius sacerdos is the European Alpine species in the group. Indeed some of the North American taxa in the corybas group should now be treated as subspecies of Parnassius corybas, those that were retained within phoebus after smintheus and behrii were split as separate species.

Adam.

[bobw]

As Adam says, P. sacerdos is the European alpine species. The only American ones that would still belong to P. corybas would be sspp. apricatus and golovinus, the rest are P. smintheus or behrii.  There have been many other subspecies described in Asia but the list above are the major subspecies (or subspecies groups).

By the way, it's also a rather contentious view to make bremeri and rueckbeili subspecies of corybas; most people consider them to be separate species.

Sorry, I don't have a map.

Bob

[Adam Cotton]

This problem is discussed in Rose & Weiss, 2011 on page 504.
They reject the findings on 4 grounds, summarised here:
1. the illustration could be either species
2. descriptions from that time were very vague
3. the principle of priority under article 23 of the ICZN Code should have been taken into account
4. Bryk already designated "neotypes" in 1935.

It is not possible to unilaterally reject the actions of Hanus & Theye (2010 & 2011) under 1, 2 or 3. Hanus & Theye do mention Bryk (1935) but do not discuss the supposed neotype designation which is actually invalid for several reasons, mainly because the designation just states "Neotypen: [male sign] [female sign] in coll. Zool. Mus. Berlin." without actually designating a SINGLE specimen as neotype.

Adam.

[Adam Cotton]

See collector-secret.proboards.com/thread/3719/parnassius-phoebus-again
for Opinion 2488 conserving the name Papilio phoebus Fabricius, 1793, so corybas reverts to a subspecies.

Adam.