Species Eirmocides callainus Braby & Müller, 2023

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• Eirmocides callainus Braby, M.F., Müller, C.J. & Espeland, M. 2023. Four species in one: taxonomic revision of the Eirmocides helenita (Semper, 1879) complex (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) from Australia and New Guinea. Austral Entomology 62: 167–190 [Date published 23 May 2023].

  Type data:

   Holotype ANIC ANIC Database No. 31 084582 male (5 March 1992, L.R. Ring), Palm Cove, Cairns, QLD.
  Paratype(s) ANIC 42♂, 31♀.

  Type locality references:

  Braby, M.F., Müller, C.J. & Espeland, M. 2023. Four species in one: taxonomic revision of the Eirmocides helenita (Semper, 1879) complex (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) from Australia and New Guinea. Austral Entomology 62: 167–190 [Date published 23 May 2023].

Introduction

This species has in the past been confused with E. helenita, which is restricted to Cape York Peninsula and allopatric with E. callainus. Braby (2000, p. 755) noted phenotypic differences between specimens from Cape York Peninsula and those further south (i.e., Wet Tropics) and stated that ‘Male specimens from Cape York Peninsula, including Cape York, 15 km west of Captain Billy Creek on the Great Dividing Range and Iron Range, usually have the area between the “prongs” of the trident patch of sex-scales suffused with white’. He also noted that ‘In the female … occasionally the basal area of the fore wing is weakly suffused with bluishgrey’, but he did not comment on the taxonomic status of these populations. Tindale (1965) also noted that the females from Cape York differed in having a trace of blue scales on the inner side of the white central patch on the fore wing. Subsequently, Braby et al. (2023) treated the population from the Wet Tropics as a distinct species, E. callainus, based on fundamental differences in the male genitalia and wing pattern elements and its phylogenetic position within the Eirmocides helenita species-group according to molecular data.

Ecological Descriptors

Larva: herbivore (associated flora: Brachychiton acerifolius Macarthur & C.Moore [STERCULIACEAE]), herbivore (associated flora: Arytera pauciflora S.Reyn [SAPINDACEAE]), herbivore (associated flora: Glochidion ferdinandi (Mull.Arg.) F.M.Bailey [EUPHORBIACEAE] Buttonwood), herbivore (associated flora: Cryptocarya hypospodia F.Muell. [LAURACEAE]).

General References

Braby, M.F. 2000. The Butterflies of Australia, their identification, biology and distribution. Melbourne : CSIRO Publishing xx 976 pp.

Braby, M.F., Müller, C.J. & Espeland, M. 2023. Four species in one: taxonomic revision of the Eirmocides helenita (Semper, 1879) complex (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) from Australia and New Guinea. Austral Entomology 62: 167–190 [Date published 23 May 2023]

Tindale, N.B. 1965. A new species of Holochila (Rhopalocera, Family Lycaenidae) from Victoria and southern New South Wales. Records of the South Australian Museum (Adelaide) 15(1): 165-174 [Date published 6 October 1965]

History of changes