Home > Phylum selection > Arthropoda > Lepidoptera > Lycaenidae
Home How to cite this site Terms & conditions Disclaimer Contact Site tutorial / Help Links	Meleageria daphnis Zahnflügelbläuling Subspecies Original description Synonyms Polyommatus daphnis Meleageria daphnis Note: The species placed in Lysandra and Meleageria are lumped together into Meleageria s.l. by several recent authors. However, the comprehensive phylogenetic study by Wiemers et al. (2009) shows that Lysandra is not closely related to Meleageria. This is also supported by other phylogenetic studies (Kandul et al. 2004; Talavera et al. 2013). I therefore do not lump these two genera. However, the study by Wiemers et al. (2009) also suggests that Meleageria is the sister group of the very large genus Agrodiaetus and thus might be lumped with this genus to form a monophyletic group. On the other hand, I think that the phenotype of Meleageria is so unique that a separate genus is more than justified as long as no paraphyletic group results from this action. According to Wiemers et al. (2009) Meleageria, Agrodiaetus, and Meleageria+Agrodiaetus are monophyletic, thus I prefer to recognize two separate monophyletic groups Meleageria and Agrodiaetus. Talavera et al. (2013) propose to lump together Agrodiaetus and Polyommatus s.str. into one large Polyommatus s.l., based on the young age of the split between these lineages. This large Polyommatus would then include also the present species. However, the internal structure of the large Polyommatus genus in Talavera et al. (2013) is not well resolved, especially the split between Agrodiaetus and Polyommatus s.str. and the root of the group containing Meleageria daphnis is not statistically significant (see their figure 1). In addition, the position of Meleageria daphnis is not congruent with its position in other recent molecular phylogenies. Thus, I regard the internal structure of Polyommatus s.l. as currently unresolved and refrain from changing the current taxonomy: I retain Polyommatus s. str. and Agrodiaetus as two separate genera. The position of Meleageria as either more closely related to Polyommatus s.str. or to Agrodiaetus is currently unclear and I therefore retain it provisionally as a separate genus. Identification Distribution Biology This page has been updated on June 26, 2012 This site is online since May 31, 2005 Copyright © by Nikola-Michael Prpic. All rights reserved.	Related information: Subspecies Original description Synonyms Identification Distribution Biology References