RESUMO
The genus Colias Fabricius, 1807 includes numerous taxa and forms with uncertain status and taxonomic position. Among such taxa are Colias mongola Alphéraky, 1897 and Colias tamerlana Staudinger, 1897, interpreted in the literature either as conspecific forms, as subspecies of different but morphologically somewhat similar Colias species or as distinct species-level taxa. Based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA markers, we reconstructed a phylogeographic pattern of the taxa in question. We recover and include in our analysis DNA barcodes of the century-old type specimens, the lectotype of C. tamerlana deposited in the Natural History Museum (Museum für Naturkunde), Berlin, Germany (ZMHU) and the paralectotype of C. tamerlana and the lectotype of C. mongola deposited in the Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia (ZISP). Our analysis grouped all specimens within four (HP_I-HP_IV) deeply divergent but geographically poorly structured clades which did not support nonconspecifity of C. mongola-C. tamerlana. We also show that all studied females of the widely distributed haplogroup HP_II were infected with a single Wolbachia strain belonging to the supergroup B, while the males of this haplogroup, as well as all other investigated specimens of both sexes, were not infected. Our data highlight the relevance of large-scale sampling dataset analysis and the need for testing for Wolbachia infection to avoid erroneous phylogenetic reconstructions and species misidentification.
RESUMO
A detailed comparison of the taxa Mellicta aurelia distans Higgins, 1955, M. aurelia aurelia (Nickerl, 1850), and M. alatauica (Staudinger, 1881) was performed. The geographic isolation of M. aurelia distans, its habitat preferences, as well as clear differences in the female and male genitalia compared with M. aurelia aurelia, indicate that the taxon distans is an independent species. Molecular data based on sequencing of cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) of the mitochondrial DNA confirmed our morphological results. Both the morphological and the molecular results showed a high degree of divergence of M. alatauica from the related species.