Papilio machaon ssp.

[Maksim khorunov]

Hello dear friends!
I ask for your help in determining the subspecies. Place of capture China, North West Yunnan province, near Deging town h-1200m., 05.2011. I think it's Papilio machaon taliensis. Sorry for the poor quality of the photo, the camera broke.

[Adam Cotton]

This is ssp. venchuanus Moonen, 1984 which is the replacement name for chinensis Eller, 1936 which is a junior homonym (Verity's 1907 name was infrasubspecific and thus unavailable, but Eller treated it as a ssp. and made the name available with his authorship and date of publication).

The name taliensis Eller, 1939 is a nomen nudum applicable to ssp. verityi Fruhstorfer, 1907, but this specimen does not look like verityi, which always has a double black chevron over a large red anal eyespot. Ssp. venchuanus only has a double chevron in the 'summer' form.

The locality is Deqing with a Q not G (usually known as Deqen) and is in the Yangtze watershed where venchuanus is found. Ssp. verityi is found from the Red River and Mekong watersheds westards through Burma as far as Manipur in India.

Adam.

[Maksim khorunov]

Dear Adam, Hello! Thank you for your participation! I want to adjust the coordinates, Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province 27°50'00.0"N 99°36'00.0"E

[Adam Cotton]

I guess that the coordinates are approximate, as it's highly unlikely that both longitude and latitude would end in "00.0", but yes, that would place it well inside the Yangtze watershed (north and east of the river) so my identification should stand, both on georgaphical distribution and appearance.

Adam.

[Maksim khorunov]

Dear Adam! You are right, I do not have the exact coordinates, only the data of Yunnan Province near Deqing town. To understand about the same place we say I marked it on the map, it's almost a border with Burma, 23 kilometers away. i.piccy.info/i9/f5e8eeb654734f8aa9068576ccd051f6/1527989576/466023/1248645/Tibetan_Autonomous_Prefecture.jpg

I thought that the subspecies of venchuanus are distributed much northeast in the region of Hubei. Adam, these are my first Papilio machaon from East Asia, not counting hippocrates, so please do not judge strictly for my possible mistakes.

[Adam Cotton]

The area you marked on the map is the whole of NW Yunnan, which includes 3 river valleys with ~3000m mountain ranges running north to south between each river, in the west is Nujiang (= Salween River), middle Lancang (= Mekong) and the eastern river is the Yangtze. All of them are very close to each other but most butterflies cannot cross from one river system to the next because the mountains are too high for them to pass.

Here's a map:

Your specimen came from somewhere near Zhongdian, which is another name for Deqen (=Deqing), well inside the range of venchuanus.


The type locality of chinensis is "Szechwan: Traku, Venchuah" and the replacement name venchuanus automatically takes the same type locality. Hubei is further east down the Yangtze river, but the same subspecies is found all the way through the Yangtze river system.

Because ssp. verityi occurs further south it can cross through the lower passes between Mekong and Salween river systems in southern Yunnan, and also spread westward through Burma, which is why the same subspecies occurs through both river systems, but the Yangtze system is separated as it bends north of the mountains in central Yunnan.

I hope this clarifies it.

Adam.

[Maksim khorunov]

Adam, thank you very much! Now I learned a lot about the territorial isolation of ssp. venchuanus. If I'm not mistaken then Seyer generally wanted to separate the subspecies of chinensis into a separate independent species with a number of subspecies, and Seyer seems to lead for Yunnan territory no longer Papilio machaon but a new Papilio chinensis taliensis and for the territory of Burma Papilio chinensis verityi. I do not know what was the further fate of his work on the allocation of the subspecies chinensis
in an independent form. Adam, my knowledge of the subspecies of Papilio machaon of East Asia is very modest and I very much appreciate your help! Maybe you can tell me any sources with a description of the definition of subspecies and their territorial localities, or share links to some relevant works and monographs?

[Adam Cotton]

Seyer, 1976 (Mitt. ent. Ges. Basel, 26(3)) on p. 113 treats chinensis as an "Untergruppe" (subgroup) of Papilio machaon. He included subspecies chinensis, schantugensis, sylviae[sic], taliensis, archias and verityi in this subgroup. Note that Seyer often added an 'e' to the end of names which end in -a. These are unjustified emendations and are invalid names.

Lee, C. L., 1980 (Acta entomologica Sinica, 23(4): 427-430 - in Chinese) regarded Chinese machaon as consisting of 3 species P. machaon, P. annae and P. verityi. He included most subspecies in machaon, but separated the high altitude subspecies (which he treated as P. annae but is often known as sikkimensis, a junior homonym replaced by hookeri Gaonkar, 1999) and P. verityi from Yunnan. This arrangement needs further study, but it is possible that hookeri does belong to a separate species to machaon.

The latest work on the group is
Bauer & Frankenbach, Butterflies of the World: 45. Sturm, R.: Illustrated Checklist of Papilio machaon - group, Iphiclides podalirius, and Papilio alexanor - Papilionidae XVI. 12 pp., 32 col. plates. 2017.
available from www.insecta.de,

Adam.

[Maksim khorunov]

Adam, thanks for the link, I'll try to order this book. Adam, what kind of butterflies do you like? I've heard that you are an expert in the field of P. machaon, but I do not know if it's true. Do you have P. machaon sachalinensis in the collection? I have a small series of 4 pairs but this year my friend from Sakhalin has collected for me a large amount of spring generation and will still collect summer. If you want, I'll give you some quantity.

[Adam Cotton]

Jun 3, 2018 18:18:52 GMT Maksim khorunov said:

this year my friend from Sakhalin has collected for me a large amount of spring generation and will still collect summer.

Actually I didn't realise that there are 2 generations in Sakhalin since it is quite far north. I assumed that it was univoltine. My specimens (13 males, 4 females) are all from June. When does the spring generation fly?

Adam.

[Maksim khorunov]

Adam, I also always believed that there was only one generation on Sakhalin. But, not so long ago, many authors recognized the subspecies of machaon hippocrates as an independent species -Papilio hippocrates and the subspecies P. machaon sachalinensis was excluded and replaced by the subspecies Papilio hippocrates. If we assume that this is true and Papilio hippocrates is an independent species, then on Sakhalin there can exist two different species - Papilio hippocrates and Papilio machaon. This is evidenced first of all by sharp visual differences among individuals within the same generation and habitat and the time of emergence of adults of different appearance. In March of this year, I attended an international entomological congress in Moscow where we took many samples from Sakhalin P. machaon for DNA analysis but the results have not yet been received. Adam, I attach the links of two pairs and a series of others for comparison, compare them with those that you have. This year, spring generation on Sakhalin appeared on May 23 - 24, and 27 my colleague has already started gathering for me. For study and research, I ordered about 100 pairs from various parts of Sakhalin, South, Center and North. The second generation is observed in July, everything depends on the weather conditions. But, in mid-June in the southern part of Sakhalin, new individuals appear after the spring generation, usually a darker color. This was not observed for the North of Sakhalin. My opinion is that Sakhalin requires more additional research and early denies the subspecies Papilio machaon sachalinensis as some authors have already done. Adam, do your Sakhalins have a double black chevron over a large red anal spot or is it missing?

piccy.info/view3/12258968/0ed6dc6c61470f75ca0d6c59c5943aae/1200/

i.piccy.info/i9/bce2d42395bf0c3a7f65dcdc10766f38/1528066667/520609/1248852/Sakhalyn.jpg

i.piccy.info/i9/2124049b0c3d37c8184c62308450a3b5/1528066842/357249/1248852/Sakhalyn_2018.jpg

[Adam Cotton]

Maksim,

Mine all have a single black chevron. I have them from 3 localities:
Smirnykh, 600m., W Sakhalin Range
Zonal'noe, Tymovskoye
Longari, Tymovskoye

Indeed sachalinensis is very closely related to hippocrates from Japan and Korea. Some authors have treated hippocrates as a separate species on and off over many years. I have bred many Japanese hippocrates and crossed them with European machaon. I found that there is a certain amount of reduced fertility, but I was able to produce F2 "hybrids" and also back crosses of the hybrid with hippocrates. I believe we can treat these as the same species, but they are diverging due to isolation, and in a million years or so they will become separate species.

I am not surprised that you have found sachalinensis with a double black chevron over the anal eye spot, these will be summer form specimens. Similarly in hippocrates the first generation, and the intermediate generation where it occurs, also has only a single black chevron over the eye spot, but the summer form has two. This is also the case in venchuanus, unlike in verityi which always has a double chevron, and an enlarged red eyespot. Here's a picture of two Burmese verityi as an example:


I expect that at lower altitude localities in warm years when the sachalinensis hatch early they can easily have another generation in July if the weather there is still warm. I was able to go through at least 7 generations of Japanese hippocrates in 1 year here with our warm/hot weather all year round, and while some from each generation went into diapause at least half did not. This is controlled by daylength, and here it is shorter than ideal for this species, as it is 11-13 hours all year round. As a result some went into diapause at each generation, and interestingly all diapause pupae produced spring form adults regardless of which generation they came from. I am sure that if the weather is good in Sakhalin the machaon can have a second generation. Similarly I am sure that the interesting Taymyr population in far north western Russia would also have a second generation if it had a long summer.

Adam.

[Maksim khorunov]

Adam Hello! I also have different places: Smirnykhovskiy district, Dolinsky District and Kholmsky district. This year there will be another North of the island. Yes Adam, You are absolutely right that the second black Chevron is observed only in the summer generation but what is interesting it occurs only in some individuals in the southern half of Sakhalin in a ratio of about 10% of the total mass, the remaining 90% of the same population of the second black Chevron do not have. In any case, this year we will have a sufficient amount of material to study, the Northern part of the island of Okha district is particularly interesting. Later, I will pass part of the material to the state Darwin Museum and of course, first of all, I will share it with my colleagues. So Adam and I asked you if you need I will share it with you. I just remember that I read somewhere on this forum that about You is very positive as a good specialist. Adam, I've heard a lot about crossing European machaon and Japanese hippocrates, it's a very interesting experiment but I personally haven't had a chance to get live samples. Adam and you have a photo of these hybrids F1 and F2 would love to see what they are. I attach a photo with a double Chevron, unfortunately a copy of the poor quality and photos of others I can not yet do.

Attachments:

[Adam Cotton]

Jun 4, 2018 20:03:59 GMT Maksim khorunov said:

what is interesting it occurs only in some individuals in the southern half of Sakhalin in a ratio of about 10% of the total

Yes, that is interesting, since in hippocrates summer form specimens normally have a double chevron. However, checking my series of venchuanus from across China I notice that the double chevron is only present in a minority of summer form specimens of that subspecies too. That was unclear from my earlier post about this character.

I can't at this stage post any photos of machaon x hippocrates hybrids because they are all papered. I was more interested in making crosses and finding out whether they make F2 hybrids or not. One day I will spread some of them. I also made hybrids with machaon and brevicauda and then crossed these with hippocrates for 3 generations. The black forms of these are very beautiful:



Adam.

[Adam Cotton]

I forgot to mention that I was unable to test fertility of the machaon x brevicauda hybrids, because very interestingly all the male hybrids hatched in a few weeks, but all the females went into diapause and hatched the next spring. That's why I initially crossed male (machaon x brevicauda) with hippocrates females. It was diffcult to breed F2 sib crosses of the resulting hybrid, I obtained very few eggs and larvae (most eggs were sterile or did not develop to hatch) but back crosses onto female hippocrates produced many offspring, so the male hybrids were fertile.

Adam.