DNA barcodes and cryptic species of skipper butterflies in the genus Perichares in Area de Conservacion Guanacaste, Costa Rica.

ABSTRACT: DNA barcodes can be used to identify cryptic species of skipper butterflies previously detected by classic taxonomic methods and to provide first clues to the existence of yet other cryptic species. A striking case is the common geographically and ecologically widespread neotropical skipper butterfly Perichares philetes (Lepidoptera, Hesperiidae), described in 1775, which barcoding splits into a complex of four species in Area de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG) in northwestern Costa Rica. Three of the species are new, and all four are described. Caterpillars, pupae, and foodplants offer better distinguishing characters than do adults, whose differences are mostly average, subtle, and blurred by intraspecific variation. The caterpillars of two species are generalist grass-eaters; of the other

SUBMITTER: Burns JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2359806 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature