Pontia

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Pontia
Pontia edusa - Eastern Bath white - Belianka rapsovaia (40465132514).jpg
Pontia edusa edusa on Knautia arvensis
near Antsiferovo, Moscow Oblast, Russia
Scientific classification Red Pencil Icon.png
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Euarthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Pieridae
Tribe: Pierini
Genus:Pontia
Fabricius, 1807
Species

Around a dozen, see text

Synonyms
  • MancipiumHübner, [1807]
  • SynchloeHübner, 1818
  • MancipiumStephens, 1828
  • Parapierisde Nicéville, 1897
  • LeucochloëRöber, [1907]
  • LeucochloeRöber, [1907]
  • PontieuchloiaVerity, 1929

Pontia is a genus of pierid butterflies. They are found in the Holarctic, but are rare in Europe and central to eastern North America, and a few species range into the Afrotropics. Several East Asian species once placed here are now more often split off in Sinopieris . Like the closely related genus Pieris , they are commonly called whites.

Pieridae family of insects

The Pieridae are a large family of butterflies with about 76 genera containing about 1,100 species, mostly from tropical Africa and tropical Asia with some varieties in the more northern regions of North America. Most pierid butterflies are white, yellow, or orange in coloration, often with black spots. The pigments that give the distinct coloring to these butterflies are derived from waste products in the body and are a characteristic of this family.

Butterfly A group of insects in the order Lepidoptera

Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises the large superfamily Papilionoidea, which contains at least one former group, the skippers, and the most recent analyses suggest it also contains the moth-butterflies. Butterfly fossils date to the Paleocene, which was about 56 million years ago.

Holarctic

The Holarctic is the name for the biogeographic realm that encompasses the majority of habitats found throughout the northern continents of the world, combining Wallace's Palearctic zoogeographical region, consisting of North Africa and all of Eurasia, and the Nearctic zoogeographical region, consisting of North America, north of Mexico. These regions are further subdivided into a variety of ecoregions. Many ecosystems, and the animal and plant communities that depend on them, are found across multiple continents in large portions of this realm. The continuity of these ecosystems results from the shared glacial history of the realm. The floristic Boreal Kingdom corresponds to the Holarctic realm.

Contents

Species

Listed alphabetically: [1]

<i>Pontia beckerii</i> species of insect

Pontia beckerii, the Becker's white, Great Basin white, or sagebrush white, is a butterfly in the family Pieridae. It is found in western North America from Baja California, Mexico to southern British Columbia, Canada.

<i>Pontia callidice</i> species of insect

Pontia callidice, the lofty Bath white or peak white, is a small butterfly of the family Pieridae, that is, the yellows and whites, which occurs in the Palearctic zoogeographical region.

<i>Pontia chloridice</i> species of insect

Pontia chloridice, the lesser Bath white, is a small butterfly of the family Pieridae, that is, the yellows and whites. The species is found in steppe zone of Ukraine, Moldova and Russia; east to Transbaikalia, Mongolia, Korea; south to Balkan Peninsula, Turkey, Transcaucasia, Greater Caucasus, Iran, Northern Pakistan, Central Asia, Kazakhstan.

Some other species are occasionally placed here, but alternatively in other genera. Pontia extensa may belong in Pieris , while a number of other species from the China region are often split off in Sinopieris :

<i>Pieris</i> (butterfly) Butterfly genus in family Pieridae

Pieris, the whites or garden whites, is a widespread now almost cosmopolitan genus of butterflies of the family Pieridae. The highest species diversity is in the Palearctic, with a higher diversity in Europe and eastern North America than the similar and closely related Pontia. The females of many Pieris butterflies are UV reflecting, while the male wings are strongly UV absorbing due to pigments in the scales.

<i>Sinopieris</i> Butterfly genus in family Pieridae

Sinopieris is a genus of butterflies in the family Pieridae. The genus occurs in Gansu, Nepal, Nanshan, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Tibet and Yunnan. All six species were originally included in Pieris and subsequently in Pontia.

Shaanxi Province

Shaanxi, is a province of the People's Republic of China. Officially part of the Northwest China region, it lies in central China, bordering the provinces of Shanxi, Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichuan (SW), Gansu (W), Ningxia (NW), and Inner Mongolia (N). It covers an area of over 205,000 km2 (79,151 sq mi) with about 37 million people. Xi'an – which includes the sites of the former Chinese capitals Fenghao and Chang'an – is the provincial capital. Xianyang, which served as the Qin dynasty capital, is located nearby. The other prefecture-level cities into which the province is divided are Ankang, Baoji, Hanzhong, Shangluo, Tongchuan, Weinan, Yan'an and Yulin.

Sichuan Province

Sichuan is a province in southwest China occupying most of the Sichuan Basin and the easternmost part of the Tibetan Plateau between the Jinsha River on the west, the Daba Mountains in the north, and the Yungui Plateau to the south. Sichuan's capital city is Chengdu. The population of Sichuan stands at 81 million.

Tibet Plateau region in Asia

Tibet is a historical region covering much of the Tibetan Plateau in Inner Asia. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Tamang, Qiang, Sherpa, and Lhoba peoples and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han Chinese and Hui people. Tibet is the highest region on Earth, with an average elevation of 5,000 metres (16,000 ft). The highest elevation in Tibet is Mount Everest, Earth's highest mountain, rising 8,848 m (29,029 ft) above sea level.

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<i>Syringa</i> genus of plants

Syringa (lilac) is a genus of 12 currently recognized species of flowering woody plants in the olive family (Oleaceae), native to woodland and scrub from southeastern Europe to eastern Asia, and widely and commonly cultivated in temperate areas elsewhere.

<i>Papilio</i> genus of insects

Papilio is a genus in the swallowtail butterfly family, Papilionidae, as well as the only representative of the tribe Papilionini. The word papilio is Latin for butterfly.

Heliconiinae subfamily of insects

The Heliconiinae, commonly called heliconians or longwings, are a subfamily of the brush-footed butterflies. They can be divided into 45–50 genera and were sometimes treated as a separate family Heliconiidae within the Papilionoidea. The colouration is predominantly reddish and black, and though of varying wing shape, the forewings are always elongated tipwards, hence the common name.

Pierinae subfamily of insects

The Pierinae are a large subfamily of pierid butterflies. The subfamily is one of several clades of butterflies often referred to as the whites. It includes the following species :

<i>Colias</i> Butterfly genus in family Pieridae

Colias is a genus of butterflies in the family Pieridae. They are often called clouded yellows; the North American name "sulphurs" is elsewhere used for Coliadinae in general. The closest living relative is the genus Zerene, which is sometimes included in Colias.

<i>Linnaea</i> genus of plants

Linnaea is a plant genus in the family Caprifoliaceae. Until 2013, the genus included a single species, Linnaea borealis. In 2013, on the basis of molecular phylogenetic evidence, the genus was expanded to include species formerly placed in Abelia, Diabelia, Dipelta, Kolkwitzia and Vesalea.

<i>Pontia edusa</i> species of insect

Pontia edusa, the eastern Bath white, is a butterfly in the family Pieridae.

<i>Sinopieris davidis</i>

Sinopieris davidis is a species of butterfly in the genus Sinopieris, but also possibly in Pontia. It was described by Charles Oberthür in 1876 and is found in China.

Sinopieris dubernardi, or Oberthür's white, is a species of butterfly in the family Pieridae. It is treated as a member of the genus Sinopieris, or alternately, the genus Pontia. It is found in China, where it inhabits grassland plateaus and mountainsides at elevations above 2,000 meters.

References

  1. ↑ Pontia funet.fi

The Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) is an international initiative dedicated to supporting the development of DNA barcoding as a global standard for species identification. CBOL's Secretariat Office is hosted by the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC. Barcoding was proposed in 2003 by Prof. Paul Hebert of the University of Guelph in Ontario as a way of distinguishing and identifying species with a short standardized gene sequence. Hebert proposed the 648 bases of the Folmer region of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome-C oxidase-1 as the standard barcode region. Dr. Hebert is the Director of the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding, and the International Barcode of Life Project (iBOL), all headquartered at the University of Guelph. The Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) is also located at the University of Guelph.

Further reading


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