Allancastria Bryk, 1934

Introduction

The genus Allancastria today consists of five species: Allancastria cerisy (Godart, 1824); A. deyrollei Oberthür, 1869; A. cretica (Rebel, 1904); A. caucasica (Lederer, 1864); and A. louristana (Le Cerf, 1908) (Häuser et al., 2005). They have a western Palaearctic distribution and their larvae feed on various species of Aristolochia (Aristolochiaceae).

Nomenclature

The name Allancastria first appeared in print in 1932 in a paper by Bryk (Hemming, 1967). It has frequently been considered a subgenus of Zerynthia Ochsenheimer, 1816 (e.g. Hesselbarth et al., 1995), and the species belonging to it have previously been classified under Zerynthia, Thais Fabricius, 1807, or Parnalius Rafinesque, 1815 (see Ackery, 1975; Hesselbarth et al., 1995). According to Hemming (1967), the name Thais Fabricius, 1807 is invalid, as it is a junior homonym of Thais Röding, 1798. Ackery (1975: 90, 91) treated Allancastria as a junior subjective synonym of Parnalius Rafinesque, 1815, under which he included P. cerisy, P. rumina and P. polyxena, and indicated that if Allancastria has to be recognized as a genus “there is equal justification for raising the status of the species groups of Parnassius to genera”. The priority of the name Parnalius Rafinesque, 1815 was later suppressed by the ICZN in favor of Zerynthia Ochsenheimer, 1816 (ICZN opinion 1134, 1979).

Hemming (1967: 37) believed that the name Allancastria was invalid, since “Bryk (1932) provided no generic diagnosis and designated no type species, both essential requirements for a generic name published after the close of 1930” (Article 13, ICZN). However, according to Cowan (1970: 41), Bryk actually designated Thais cerisy Godart, [1824] as the type species in 1934; and therefore the name Allancastria should be considered valid and available. The genus Allancastria, including the only species that was then known, Allancastria cerisy, was first separated from Zerynthia by Bryk in 1934. The monotypy of Allancastria held for a long time, and many local forms and subspecies were described for A. cerisy, some of which were later elevated to species rank.

References

Ackery, P.R., 1975. A guide to the genera and species of Parnassiinae (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae). Bull. Br. Mus. Nat. Hist. Ent. 31: 71-105, plates 1-15.

Bryk, F., 1932. Kritische revision der gattung Parnassius unter benutzung des materials der kollektion Eisner, Dahlem (ortsetzung). Parnassiiana 2: 104.

Bryk, F., 1934. Baroniidae, Teinopalpidae, Parnassiidae, Part.I. Das Tierreich, Deutschen Zoologische Gesellschaft im Auftrag der Preussischen Akademie der Wissensch. Berlin und Lepizig, 64: I-XXIII, 1-131.

Cowan, C.F., 1970. Annotations Rhopalocerologicae. 70 p., Berkhamsted.

Häuser, C.L., de Jong, R., Lamas, G., Robbins, R.K., Smith, C., Vane-Wright, R.I., 2005. Papilionidae – revised GloBIS/GART species checklist (2nd draft). Accessed December 2005.

Hemming, A.F., 1967. The generic names of the butterflies and their type-species (Lepidoptera: Rhopalocera). Bull. Br. Mus. Nat. Hist. Ent. Suppl. 9: 509 pp.

Hesselbarth, G., van Oorschot, H., Wagener, S., 1995. Die Tagfalter der Türkei. 1. 754 pp. Bocholt, Selbstverlag Sigbert Wagener.

ICZN, 1979. Opinion 1134. Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 36: 102.

Nazari, V., Zakharov, E.V., Sperling, F.A.H., 2007. Phylogeny, historical biogeography, and taxonomic ranking of Parnassiinae (Lepidoptera, Papilionidae) based on morphology and seven genes. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 42: 131-156.