Dynamic Checklist of the Western Palearctic butterflies
(Lepidoptera, Papilionoidea) Hyperlinked to Systematics, Genetics and Distribution Papilionoidea Rationale
The Pieris napi (Linnaeus, 1758) complex comprises several taxa for which species status remains to be demonstrated. A comprehensive monograph covering all potential species (Eitschberger 1983) recognised the following species for the western Palaearctic region: Pieris napi (Linnaeus, 1758), Pieris bryoniae (Hübner, [1806]), Pieris pseudorapae Verity, 1908 which consists of three subspecies, pseudorapae Verity from Lebanon, suffusa Sheljuzhko, 1931 from southern Russia, and balcana Lorkovic, 1968 from the Balkans, and Pieris segonzaci Le Cerf, 1923. This study relied on a broad set of criteria, including ecology, habitus, the morphology of legs and androconia, male genitalia, eggs, and other characters, to establish the species listed above. Reissinger (1990), in his checklist, adopted Eitschberger’s classification unchanged.
However, the results of hybridisation experiments (Lorkovic 1970; Hesselbarth et al. 1995) challenge this classification, as they showed that the Asia Minor and Caucasian taxa previously assigned to P. pseudorapae can freely hybridise with P. napi, whereas balcana cannot.
Dapporto et al. (2022), in The Atlas of Mitochondrial Genetic Diversity for Western Palearctic Butterflies, recognised the following species: P. balcana, P. bryoniae, P. napi, and P. segonzaci.
However, a recent genomic study posted as a bioRxiv preprint (Sala-Garcia et al. 2025) using broad phylogenomic and population genomic data across the Pieris napi group suggests patterns of phylogenetic relationships, population structure and ecological differentiation that may not fully align with purely mitochondrial or morphology-based taxonomies, and it highlights the need for further evaluation once the work has undergone formal peer review.
Conclusion
The checklist (Taymans & Cuvelier 2025), is aligned with the taxonomic conclusions of the most recent peer-reviewed study.
References
Dapporto L., Menchetti M., Vodă R., Corbella C., Cuvelier S., Djemadi I., Gascoigne-Pees M., Hinojosa J., Lam N., Serracanta M., Talavera G., Dincă V. & Vila. R. 2022. Atlas of mitochondrial genetic diversity for Western Palearctic butterflies. — Global Ecology and Biogeography 31: 2184-2190. Article: https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13579. Supplementary Materials: url.
Eitschberger U. 1983. Systematische Untersuchungen am Pieris napi-bryoniae-Komplex (s.l.) (Lepidoptera, Pieridae). Band 1, Teil 1. — Herbipoliana, Buchreihe zur Lepidopterologie 1(1): 1-504. (url)
Eitschberger U. 1983. Systematische Untersuchungen am Pieris napi-bryoniae-Komplex (s.l.) (Lepidoptera, Pieridae). Band 1, Teil 2. — Herbipoliana, Buchreihe zur Lepidopterologie 1(2): 1-601. (url)
Hesselbarth G., van Oorschot H. & Wagener S. 1995. Die Tagfalter der Türkei: Under Berücksichtigung der Angrenzende Länder. 3 Vol. — Bocholt: Selbstverlag S. Wagener (Ed.). 2199 p.
Lorković Z. 1968[1969]. Karyologischer Beitrag zur Frage der Fortpflanzungsverhältnisse südeuropäischer Taxone von Pieris napi (L.) (Lep., Pieridae). — Bioloski Glasnik 21(1-4): 95-136.
Reissinger E. J. [1990]. Checkliste Pieridae Duponchel, 1835 (Lepidoptera) der Westpalaearktis (Europa, Nordwestafrika, Kaukasus, Kleinasien). — Atalanta 20: 149-185. (url)
Sala-Garcia J., Vives-Ingla M., Tonzo V., Dincă V., Vila R. & Carnicer J. 2025. Phylogeography and diversification of the Pieris napi species group in the Western Palaearctic. — bioRxiv 2025.01.31.634921. (url)
Taymans M. & Cuvelier S. A dynamic checklist of the Western Palearctic butterflies hyperlinked to the original descriptions at species, genus and family level (Lepidoptera, Papilionoidea). — Archives of Western Palearctic Lepidoptera 2025(1): 1-70. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14733224
Archives of Western Palearctic Lepidoptera Editors-in-Chief: Michel Taymans & Sylvain Cuvelier
