Welcome back Mr. Rudkin

[Adam Cotton]

An interesting new paper has been published on Papilio rudkini and coloro:



Shiraiwa, K. & N.V. Grishin 2020. Welcome back Mr. Rudkin: differentiating Papilio zelicaon and Papilio polyxenes in Southern California (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae). Zootaxa, 4877(3): 422–428.



Abstract:



We studied wing pattern characters to distinguish closely related sympatric species Papilio zelicaon Lucas, 1852 and Papilio polyxenes Fabricius, 1775 in Southern California, and developed a morphometric method based on the ventral black postmedian band. Application of this method to the holotype of Papilio [Zolicaon variety] Coloro W. G. Wright, 1905, the name currently applied to the P. polyxenes populations, revealed that it is a P. zelicaon specimen. The name for western US polyxenes subspecies thus becomes Papilio polyxenes rudkini (F. & R. Chermock, 1981), reinstated status, and we place coloro as a junior subjective synonym of P. zelicaon. Furthermore, we sequenced mitochondrial DNA COI barcodes of rudkini and coloro holotypes and compared them with those of polyxenes and zelicaon specimens, confirming rudkini as polyxenes and coloro as zelicaon.





The paper is open access and can be downloaded here:

www.biotaxa.org/Zootaxa/article/download/zootaxa.4877.3.3/64000



Adam.

[Adam Cotton]

I noticed a nomenclatorial error in the paper, which somehow was overlooked at peer review stage.

The name rudkini must be attributed to Comstock, 1935 not "F. & R. Chermock, 1981", and author + year should not be placed in ( ). Also, Franklin Chermock died in 1967 so he couldn't have published a new name in 1981.

The correct name for the taxon should be Papilio polyxenes rudkini Comstock, 1935.

For anyone interested in the ICZN Code issues, Comstock originally described rudkini as an infrasubspecific form, but Chermock & Chermock (1937) treated the name as valid. As a result article 45.6.4.1 applies.

Here are the relevant articles:

45.6.1. it is infrasubspecific if its author expressly gave it infrasubspecific rank, or if the content of the work unambiguously reveals that the name was proposed for an infrasubspecific entity (see also Article 45.6.4);

45.6.4. it is subspecific if first published before 1961 and its author expressly used one of the terms "variety" or "form" (including use of the terms "var.", "forma", "v." and "f."), unless its author also expressly gave it infrasubspecific rank, or the content of the work unambiguously reveals that the name was proposed for an infrasubspecific entity, in which case it is infrasubspecific [see also Art. 45.6.1]; except that

45.6.4.1. a name that is infrasubspecific under Article 45.6.4 is nevertheless deemed to be subspecific from its original publication if, before 1985, it was either adopted as the valid name of a species or subspecies or was treated as a senior homonym.


I have informed the authors and they have sent me an apology for the error.

Adam.