[Taxacom] Subspecies in insect species

[John Grehan]

I can't address Ken's question in general terms (though no doubt someone
else can), but I can make some specific comments for ghost moths where
subspecies have been proposed occasionally but in general they are not
treated as formal taxa - perhaps because there is not enough comparative
information for these cases. Problem here is often whether there is
variation involved that is geographic, but not definitive enough to
identify distinct entities. And if distinct then usually the choice is to
name different species. In the case of Aenetus tegulatus, this name had
been applied to similar looking specimens ranging between northern
Australia, New Guinea, and eastern Indonesian islands. The type specimen is
from the Indonesian Island of Ambon and after dissecting other specimens
from that island it was apparent that they were different from those of
Australia, so the Australian moths have been reassigned to the oldest
previous synonymy - Aenetus thermistes. For now A. tegulatus can only
applied with any certainty to the island of Ambon. Preliminary examination
of various 'tegulatus' clade moths in New Guinea suggest that there are
other species as well. This genitalic difference hidden by overall external
similarity of the moths is quite common in Hepialidae. I have chosen to
refer to a 'tegulatus clade' for now to includes the various 'hidden'
species rather than designate them as subspecies. The differences seen
between the various 'tegulatus' species is as great as seen between other
definitively different Aenetus species in Australia.

John Grehan

On Fri, Jan 25, 2019 at 10:09 PM Kenneth Kinman <kinman at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Dear All,
>         The thread on John's moths of the genus Aenetus got me wondering
> (as I have in the past) about subspecies of insects.  I'm sure there are
> some insect species that are divided into subspecies.  However, my
> impression has always been that most entomologists just lump potential
> subspecies into synonymy under the species name.   Why is that?
>         For instance, why isn't Aenetus tegulatus divided into
> subspecies.  Isn't there some difference in the Australian populations that
> would warrant recognizing them as one or more subspecies separate from a
> subspecies Aenetus tegulatus tegulatus.  Aren't there discernible
> morphological differences, and if not, I would think there would at least
> be some differences in their genomes.
>                        -----------------Ken
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