Lepidoptera Survey
Date of this Version
11-15-2003
Document Type
Article
Citation
Taxonomic Report of the International Lepidoptera Survey (November 15, 2003) 4(5): 1-15
Also available at https://lepsurvey.carolinanature.com/ttr/ttr-4-5.pdf
Abstract
Clark (1936) described the taxa anthedon and borealis both as new subspecies of Enodia portlandia (Fabricius, 1781). Clark described borealis as the northernmost phenotypically different taxon in this group. Anthedon later became recognized as a distinct species with borealis as a subspecies of it. Masters (1971) characterized E. anthedon borealis as displaying several subtle phenotypic differences from nominotypical anthedon and also noted significant differences in behavior and habitat and reinforced the continued recognition of borealis as a valid subspecies. However, a number of publications after 1971 generally failed to recognize subspecific status for borealis, either ignoring borealis entirely (but frequently describing its habits and/or habitat as for species anthedon) or delegating it to status of junior synonym of nominotypical anthedon. This literary history is reviewed. This paper then presents current research which not only indicates borealis is a valid subspecies, but that some degree of speciation may be evident. Thus, the subspecific status of borealis is maintained and additional species status research is sought.
Comments
Copyright 2003, International Lepidoptera Survey. Open access material
License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike-NonCommercial 4.0 International) CC BY-SA-NC 4.0 International)