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Post by nomad on Mar 19, 2016 16:39:27 GMT
I have spent the day rearranging some of my Delias drawers and its hard not to notice two things. One that there are quite well defined groups and two there are groups that have a hotpotch of species that clearly are not very closely related to each other. Take the nysa group, and look at say D. lemouti and D. hempeli, they are as different in appearance as any Delias could be. Then there is the question, why has the lovely distinct D. messalina been placed in the kummeri group? This rarity does not fit in that New Guinea group, it is a larger distinct Island Delias and so different to those other similar looking species. My small group of messalina are having their own group. Yes I know, it is not always about appearance and there are those genitalia to dissect and I know the great and the good have worked on these groups, but some of these groups seem to be in place to house those species that do not seem to fit elsewhere. Order seems to be the main goal here.
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Post by wollastoni on Mar 19, 2016 16:49:38 GMT
Well it all depends which grouping you are using, Talbot's group are somewhat outdated and many of them need a revision. Some of the Talbot group are nonsense, nysa is a good example. Talbot used the scent scales to make some of his grouping and this method which was popular in the 30ies, was not so good.
messalina was taken from group nigrina to group kummeri by Braby & Pierce in 2007 (Systematic Entomology (2007), 32, 2-25) and it is fine to me. messalina indeed shares a lot with these species. Some islands are famous for gigantism (especially Sulawesi) and messalina could have evolved bigger than the rest of its group once it reached the Bismarck archipelago.
Current barcoding should help reorganize some groups.
Some Delias species are very unique and may have their own isolated group like Delias ellipsis for example.
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Post by nomad on Mar 19, 2016 16:54:17 GMT
I have been using the most up to date source I can find.
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Post by wollastoni on Mar 19, 2016 16:59:33 GMT
AFAIK the most uptodate work on this is the recent paper of Chris Muller. Unfortunately he didn't study all Delias species and he didn't took the time to write a clear content of each of his groups.
The current German DNA barcoding research on Delias should help.
Delias being the biggest lepidoptera genus, such work is a difficult task, even if some groups are already clearly defined and coherent (group clathrata for example)
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Post by nomad on Mar 19, 2016 17:02:25 GMT
The current German DNA barcoding research on Delias should help I heard this research mentioned for some time now, have there been any published results.
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Post by deliasfanatic on Mar 19, 2016 17:27:32 GMT
I haven't heard any news recently, but I believe the study is still ongoing. There will be a lot of changes when it's completed. For example, D. hapalina will be in the same group with iltis, which makes a lot of sense when you look at the FW pattern. The geraldina group will be broken up, with many new placements, and other changes (such as moving nigropunctata to the cuningputi group) will take place. At present, I still have everything organised according to Braby, so I expect to do major reordering after awhile.
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Post by nomad on Mar 19, 2016 18:54:34 GMT
Thank you for the information Danny. It looks like my arrangement of my collection will be a on-going feature, which adds to the enjoyment and study of this diverse wonderful genus.
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Post by Adam Cotton on Mar 20, 2016 12:32:30 GMT
Delias being the biggest lepidoptera genus, ... That statement surprises me. How many species of Delias are there? Adam.
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Post by deliasfanatic on Mar 20, 2016 13:18:45 GMT
Yes, it's correct....at last count the total recognized was about 255 species.
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Post by trehopr1 on Mar 20, 2016 17:19:16 GMT
I am also surprised by that statement as well. I would have thought some moth genus would have that distinction hands down ! Perhaps a little research into this side subject is needed.
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Post by wollastoni on Mar 20, 2016 20:06:46 GMT
Maybe Delias is only the biggest rhopalocera genus.
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Post by deliasfanatic on Mar 20, 2016 21:03:42 GMT
Ah, I hadn't thought about moths....it may be correct that it's the largest rhopalocera genus, but in any event, still very large.
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cyane
New Aurelian
Posts: 14
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Post by cyane on Mar 20, 2016 23:53:17 GMT
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Post by Adam Cotton on Mar 21, 2016 11:53:38 GMT
Thanks for posting the link. The title calls Delias "the world’s largest butterfly genus". Presumably this does indeed imply that there may be at least one moth genus with more species. Adam.
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Post by cabintom on Mar 21, 2016 12:42:33 GMT
Hmm... Euphaedra isn't far behind with 245 currently recognized species.
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