Pseudergolinae Explained

Pseudergolinae is a small subfamily of nymphalid brush-footed butterflies. It is considered to include only seven species in four genera distributed mainly in the Oriental region.^[1]

Systematics

The circumscription of Pseudergolinae has seen some changes in the recent years, when it was first suggested that the tribes Cyrestini and Pseudergolini formed a monophyletic clade with subfamily status under the name Cyrestinae,^[2] but then the tribes were split again—with subfamily status—as their positions within the Nymphalidae were defined more clearly.^[3] It is now considered to be the sister group to the larger nymphaline clade, which includes the Nymphalinae, Cyrestinae, Apaturinae and Biblidinae.

Four genera are recognized in the subfamily:

• Amnosia
• Pseudergolis
• Stibochiona
• Dichorragia

Notes and References

1. Wahlberg, Niklas and Andrew V. Z. Brower. 2009. Pseudergolinae Jordan 1898. Version 18 November 2009 (under construction). http://tolweb.org/Pseudergolinae/69948/2009.11.18 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/
2. Niklas Wahlberg, Elisabet Weingartner, and Sören Nylin 2003 Towards a better understanding of the higher systematics of Nymphalidae (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea) Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 28: 473–484.
3. N. Wahlberg, J. Leneveu, U. Kodandaramaiah, C. Peña, S. Nylin, A. V. L. Freitas, and A. V. Z. Brower 2009 Nymphalid butterflies diversify following near demise at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B Biological Sciences 276: 4295–4302.