Teinopalpus

Abstract: Swallowtail butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) have been instrumental in understanding many foundational concepts in biology; despite this, a resolved and robust phylogeny of the group has been a major impediment to elucidating patterns and processes of their ecological and evolutionary history. This study presents a mitogenomic, time-calibrated phylogeny for all swallowtail genera. A shotgun sequencing approach was performed to obtain 32 complete mitogenomes that were added to available butterfly mitogenomes, resulting in a dataset including 142 butterfly taxa (and four outgroups) representing all butterfly families. Phylogenetic analyses were carried out under maximum likelihood (ML) and Bayesian inferences (BIs) with alternative partitioning strategies and the mixture (CAT) model. To test competing hypotheses about the systematics of Papilionidae, such as the enigmatic position of Baronia brevicornis or the status of the tribe Teinopalpini, we estimated the marginal likelihood of alternative topologies and computed Bayes factors. Estimates of divergence times were assessed using a Bayesian relaxed-clock approach calibrated with six fossils while testing for the number of clocks. The results recovered a well-resolved and supported phylogeny confirming that Baroniinae is sister to Parnassiinae + Papilioninae, both recovered as monophyletic. It also laid the foundations for classification at tribe and genus level, suggesting that the tribe Teinopalpini only contains the genus Teinopalpus (Meandrusa being sister to Papilio). The number of molecular clocks in dating analyses had a significant impact on divergence times. A single clock recovered an origin of butterflies in the Cretaceous (98, 66–188 Ma) and also for swallowtails (85, 55–163 Ma), while partitioning the clocks yielded an origin of Papilionoidea in the very Late Cretaceous (71, 64–86 Ma), and all butterfly families originated in the aftermath of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction. These results challenge previous studies suggesting that butterflies appeared in the Early Cretaceous, 110 Ma, concurrently with the rise of angiosperms.

Abstract: Teinopalpus aureus (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) is endemic to the mountains of southern China and Vietnam. This butterfly species was the focus of several high profile poaching cases in China and influenced conservation policies in the country because of this attention. In this study we closely monitored 2.25 km2 of the butterfly’s known habitat in Mt. Dayao Nature Reserve, Guangxi Province, China, from 2012 to 2014. A total of 33 magnolia host plants were found in the plot, and 28 individuals were reared from the egg/early larval stage until they pupated or died. We found T. aureus sufficiently difficult to breed and failed to induce oviposition in captivity. In 2015, a public museum was built in Mt. Dayao Nature Reserve to raise conservation awareness of local biodiversity, which specifically featured an exhibition of T. aureus. To investigate whether the museum was effective in increasing local conservation awareness, in 2013, 2015 and 2017, a total of 1022 local residents were interviewed regarding their conservation awareness of the butterfly. Conservation awareness significantly increased with time from 2013 to 2017, but this was also strongly influenced by residence location and respondent age.

Abstract: Partial sequences of COⅠgenes of 25 species and Cyt b genes of 20 species in six genera of Papilionoidea were sequenced and analyzed for exploring their phylogenetic relationships. Adoxophyes honmai was used as outgroup to reconstruct the phylogenetic trees of six genera with neighbor-joining (NJ), maximum parsimony (MP) and Bayesian inference (BI) methods. The results indicated that COⅠ genes are 661 bp in length by alignment, including 417 conserved, 244 variable and 191 parsimonious-informative sites, and the average percentage of A+T is 70.3%, much higher than that of C+G (29.6%). The Cytb genes are 433 bp in length by alignment, including 239 conserved, 194 variable and 135 parsimonious-informative sites; and the average percentage of A+T is 74.2%, much higher than that of C+G (25.7%). The molecular phylogenetic trees showed that the genera Papilio, Chilasa, Bhutanitis, Pachliopta and Teinopalpus are all monophyletic clades and separated from each other in the molecular phylogenetic trees. The results correspond with the classification based on traditional morphological characters. However, the monophyletic position of the genus Graphium is not certain and needs further study. The results accumulated data for the molecular systematic study of the family Papilionidae in China.