Leptotes (butterfly)

Leptotes is a butterfly genus in the family Lycaenidae. They are commonly known as zebra blues in reference to their zebra-striped undersides.

Leptotes
Lang's short-tailed blue (Leptotes pirithous)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Lycaenidae
Subfamily:	Polyommatinae
Tribe:	Polyommatini
Genus:	Leptotes Scudder, 1876
Type species
Lycaena theonus Lucas, 1857
Diversity
29 species
Synonyms
Cyclyrius Butler, [1897] Langia Tutt, 1906 (non Moore, 1872: preoccupied) Raywardia Tutt, 1908 Syntarucoides Kaye, 1904 Syntarucus Butler, 1901

The genus Cyclyrius was recently synonymized with Leptotes and its two species were thus moved to this genus.^[1]

Species

The genus can be divided into several distinct geographic groups which often correspond to clades:^[1]

Afrotropical and Palaearctic species:

• Leptotes adamsoni Collins & Larsen, 1991 – Adamson's zebra blue
• Leptotes babaulti (Stempffer, 1935) – Babault's zebra blue
• Leptotes brevidentatus (Tite, 1958) – Tite's zebra blue
• Leptotes casca (Tite, 1958)
• Leptotes cassioides (Capronnier, 1889)
• Leptotes durrelli Fric, Pyrcz & Wiemers, 2019
• Leptotes jeanneli (Stempffer, 1935)
• Leptotes mandersi (Druce, 1907)
• Leptotes marginalis (Stempffer, 1944) – black-bordered zebra blue
• Leptotes mayottensis (Tite, 1958)
• Leptotes pirithous (Linnaeus, 1767) – Lang's short-tailed blue, common zebra blue
• Leptotes pulcher (Murray, 1874) – beautiful zebra blue
• Leptotes pyrczi Libert, 2011
• Leptotes rabefaner (Mabille, 1877)
• Leptotes sanctithomae (Sharpe, 1893)
• Leptotes socotranus (Ogilvie-Grant, 1899)
• Leptotes webbianus (Brullé, 1839) – Canary blue

Indomalayan species:

• Leptotes plinius (Fabricius, 1793) – zebra blue, plumbago blue

Australasian species:

• Leptotes lybas (Godart, [1824])

Neotropical species:

• Leptotes andicola (Godman & Salvin, 1891)
• Leptotes bathyllos Tessmann, 1928
• Leptotes callanga (Dyar, 1913)
• Leptotes cassius (Cramer, [1775]) – Cassius blue, tropical striped blue
• Leptotes delalande Bálint & Johnson, 1995
• Leptotes lamasi Bálint & Johnson, 1995
• Leptotes marina (Reakirt, 1868) – marine blue, striped blue
• Leptotes parrhasioides (Wallengren, 1860) – Galapagos blue
• Leptotes perkinsae Kaye, 1931
• Leptotes trigemmatus (Butler, 1881)

Leptotes pirithous