June 29 2018 INSECTA 0636 1–9 urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:A8FADFAE-5BA0-4F73-B599- A Journal of World Insect Systematics AA01C0C1EACD MUNDI 0635 A checkered history: distribution of Pyrgus Hübner species in The Bahamas, including the first Caribbean records of Pyrgus albescens Plötz (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae) Jacqueline Y. Miller McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida P.O. Box 112710 Gainesville, FL 32611-2710 USA Deborah L. Matthews McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida P.O. Box 112710 Gainesville, FL 32611-2710 USA Andrew D. Warren McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida P.O. Box 112710 Gainesville, FL 32611-2710 USA Date of issue: June 29, 2018 CENTER FOR SYSTEMATIC ENTOMOLOGY, INC., Gainesville, FL Jacqueline Y. Miller, Deborah L. Matthews and Andrew D. Warren A checkered history: distribution of Pyrgus Hübner species in The Bahamas, including the first Caribbean records of Pyrgus albescens Plötz (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae) Insecta Mundi 0635: 1–9 ZooBank Registered: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:A8FADFAE-5BA0-4F73-B599-AA01C0C1EACD Published in 2018 by Center for Systematic Entomology, Inc. P.O. Box 141874 Gainesville, FL 32614-1874 USA http://centerforsystematicentomology.org/ Insecta Mundi is a journal primarily devoted to insect systematics, but articles can be published on any non-marine arthropod. Topics considered for publication include systematics, taxonomy, nomenclature, checklists, faunal works, and natural history. Insecta Mundi will not consider works in the applied sciences (i.e. medical entomology, pest control research, etc.), and no longer publishes book reviews or editorials. 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Box 112710 Gainesville, FL 32611-2710 USA [email protected] Deborah L. Matthews McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida P.O. Box 112710 Gainesville, FL 32611-2710 USA [email protected] Andrew D. Warren McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida P.O. Box 112710 Gainesville, FL 32611-2710 USA [email protected] Abstract. Despite being generally distributed and common on Cuba, Hispaniola, and in south Florida, species of Pyrgus Hübner (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae), commonly known as checkered skippers, are very poorly known from The Bahamas. Previous records indicated the presence only of Pyrgus oileus (Linnaeus, 1767), just from Great Inagua Island, although its status on that island remains unclear. Herein we document P. oileus for the first time from Grand Bahama Island, suggesting an independent dispersal of this species to the northern Bahamas from south Florida. Furthermore, we document Pyrgus albescens Plötz, 1884 from Grand Bahama and Abaco islands, representing the first Caribbean records for this rapidly dispersing species. We suggest that bothP. oileus and P. albescens arrived on Grand Bahama sometime between 2010 and 2014, most likely from south Florida, and that P. albescens has subsequently dispersed to Abaco. Careful study of Pyrgus species in The Bahamas is needed to document future colonization events. Key words. Abaco, Grand Bahama, biogeography, butterfly, dispersal, skipper. Introduction The history of the genus Pyrgus Hübner, [1819], commonly known as checkered skippers, is truly checkered in The Bahamas. To date, only Pyrgus oileus has been reported from the Commonwealth, and only from a single island, Great Inagua (Clench and Bjorndal 1980). Even on Great Inagua, P. oileus may not be a permanent resident, as discussed by Clench and Bjorndal (1980), Simon and Miller (1986) and Smith et al. (1994; but see below). The apparent absence of P. oileus in The Bahamas (other than on Great Inagua) is puzzling, considering its abundance and relatively ubiquitous distribution in disturbed habitats on the nearby Greater Antilles of Cuba (e.g., Alayo and Hernández 1987; Núñez and Barro 2012) and Hispaniola (e.g., Schwartz 1989), as well as in southern Florida (Smith et al. 1994) and many of the Florida Keys, including Key West (Minno and Emmel 1993). Ongoing faunal surveys of The Bahamas led by JYM have included recent expeditions to 13 major islands between 2010–2016 (see Materials and Methods), yet these surveys failed to record Pyrgus oileus. Therefore, it was a surprise when checkered skippers were encountered on Grand Bahama in October, 2014; specimens were collected at multiple sites across the island on 25–27 October. Close examination 2 • INSECTA MUNDI 0635, June 2018 MILLER ET AL. of these specimens revealed the presence of P. albescens among samples of P. oileus from the island­­—a species that had previously not been recorded from The Bahamas or anywhere in the Caribbean. Our subsequent survey of Lepidoptera on North Abaco in 2016 also revealed the presence of P. albescens, suggesting that it is an established, breeding resident in the northern Bahamas, not merely a stray, and that it may be actively dispersing within The Bahamas. Pyrgus albescens is an enigmatic butterfly with a confusing taxonomic history (see Mielke 2005 for complete synonymy). For the past century there has been copious debate over the taxonomic status of P. albescens, beginning with Skinner’s (1906b) treatment of P. albescens (as P. occidentalis Skinner, 1906—now considered a synonym of P. albescens) as a subspecies-level taxon, just seven months after he (1906a) treated it as a full species. Many authors have since considered P. albescens to be a subspe- cies or form of P. communis (Grote, 1872) and its synonym (e.g., Barnes and Lindsey 1921; Lindsey et al. 1931; McDunnough 1938; Evans 1953; dos Passos 1964), while others have treated P. albescens as a species-level taxon (e.g., Klots 1951). Tilden (1965) studied the relationship between P. communis and P. albescens, and concluded that there was “no taxonomic category that expresses their relationship precisely.” Subsequently, Miller and Brown (1981) treated P. albescens as a full species, and Austin (1986) concluded that P. albescens and P. communis are “probably no more than allopatric subspecies.” More recent investigations into the taxonomic status of the two entities have still not reached a consensus. While a recent molecular study failed to separate P. communis and P. albescens (Fordyce et al. 2008), most contemporary authors have followed Burns (2000) in treating P. albescens and P. communis as separate, though very closely related, species-level taxa (e.g., Austin and Warren 2001; Calhoun 2002; Pelham 2008). Under this paradigm, adults of P. albescens