Leptotes (butterfly) explained

Leptotes is a butterfly genus in the family Lycaenidae. They are commonly known as zebra blues in reference to their zebra-striped undersides.

The genus Cyclyrius was recently synonymized with Leptotes and its two species were thus moved to this genus.

Species

The genus can be divided in several distinct geographic groups which often correspond to clades:^[1]

Afrotropical and Palaearctic species:

Leptotes adamsoni Collins & Larsen, 1991 – Adamson's zebra blue
Leptotes babaulti (Stempffer, 1935) – Babault's zebra blue
Leptotes brevidentatus (Tite, 1958) – Tite's zebra blue
Leptotes casca (Tite, 1958)
Leptotes cassioides (Capronnier, 1889)
Leptotes durrelli Fric, Pyrcz & Wiemers, 2019
Leptotes jeanneli (Stempffer, 1935)
Leptotes mandersi (Druce, 1907)
Leptotes marginalis (Stempffer, 1944) – black-bordered zebra blue
Leptotes mayottensis (Tite, 1958)
Leptotes pirithous (Linnaeus, 1767) – Lang's short-tailed blue, common zebra blue
Leptotes pulcher (Murray, 1874) – beautiful zebra blue
Leptotes pyrczi Libert, 2011
Leptotes rabefaner (Mabille, 1877)
Leptotes sanctithomae (Sharpe, 1893)
Leptotes socotranus (Ogilvie-Grant, 1899)
Leptotes webbianus (Brullé, 1839) – Canary blue

Indomalayan species:

Leptotes plinius (Fabricius, 1793) – zebra blue, plumbago blue

Australasian species:

Leptotes lybas (Godart, [1824])

Neotropical species:

Leptotes andicola (Godman & Salvin, 1891)
Leptotes bathyllos Tessmann, 1928
Leptotes callanga (Dyar, 1913)
Leptotes cassius (Cramer, [1775]) – Cassius blue, tropical striped blue
Leptotes delalande Bálint & Johnson, 1995
Leptotes lamasi Bálint & Johnson, 1995
Leptotes marina (Reakirt, 1868) – marine blue, striped blue
Leptotes parrhasioides (Wallengren, 1860) – Galapagos blue
Leptotes perkinsae Kaye, 1931
Leptotes trigemmatus (Butler, 1881)

References

(2008): Tree of Life Web Project – Leptotes Scudder 1876. The Zebra Blues. Version of 2008-MAY-19. Retrieved 2009-NOV-29.
(2009): Markku Savela's Lepidoptera and some other life forms - Leptotes. Version of 2009-MAY-24. Retrieved 2009-NOV-29.

External links

Marine Blue, Leptotes marina at Butterflies and Moths of North America
Cassius Blue, Leptotes cassius at Butterflies and Moths of North America
Leptotes at Markku Savela's website on Lepidoptera

Notes and References

Fric . Z. F. . Maresova . J. . Kadlec . T. . Tropek . R. . Pyrcz . T. W. . Wiemers . M. . 2019 . World travellers: phylogeny and biogeography of the butterfly genus Leptotes (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) . Systematic Entomology . 44 . 3 . 652–665 . 10.1111/syen.12349. 2019SysEn..44..652F . 195412904 .