REVISION OF THE GENUS HYLES HüBNER (LEPIDOPTERA: SPHINGIDAE: MACROGLOSSINAE) FROM PAKISTAN AND ITS CLADISTIC RELATIONSHIP

Abstract

The representatives of the genus Hyles Hübner are distributed throughout the World. Mostly are recorded from Neotropical and Palaeartic regions. Genus hyles includes 42-subspecies and 29-species (Kitching and Cadiou, 2000) in the world. Presently nine species are recorded from different localities including Azad Kashmir and Northern areas of Pakistan. Cotes and Swinhoe (1887) mentioned only three species of the genus Hyles as Deilephila, viz. D. livornica, D. lathyrus and D. robertsi from Palaeartic, Oriental and Ethopian regions in their catalogue of moths of India. Hampson (1892) in his fauna of British India including Ceylon and Burma described genus Hyles as Deilephila with four species with its brief description and colour pattern of larvae. Rothschild and Jordan (1903) revised the lepidopterous family Sphingidae including thirteen species of the genus Hyles as Celerio. Bell and Scott (1937) mentioned in their fauna of British India Ceylon and Burma genus Celerio which was described by Oken 1815, later synonymized as Hyles by Hübner (1819) with four species to its reference of external morphological characters of imago, larvae and pupae. Daniel Franz (1966) presented a notes on collective thirty three species with Celerio gallii nepalensis with detail discussion from Nepal. Eichler (1971) described only Hyles as Celerio gallii tibitanica from Northwest Tibet. Vestergaard (1973) studied the population of H. gallii from Eastern Veluwe. Lotzing (1991) were observed twelve species of the family Sphingidae including two species of genus Hyles viz. H. euphorbiae and H. gallii, he also mentioned that species as immigrant for examined district of Stassfurt (Saxony-Anhalt) Germany. Hashmi and Tashfeen (1992) listed only One species of Hyles as Celerio lineata in their checklist. Meerman (1993) studied 350-adults and 150-Caterpillars of H. euphorbiae and described its relationship. He also mentioned that this species is highly variable and widely distributed across the Palaeartic region. Messenger (1997) in his report The sphinx moth of Nebraska included 32-species of 20-geenera including two species of the genus Hyles of the family Sphingidae with their description, distribution, biology and food host plant of larvae and adults. Felipe (2002) described first time only one species of H. tithymali deserticola from Canary Island. Yen et al. (2003) gave a revised and an annotated checklist of the Tiawanese Sphingidae with a new subspecies of Hawkmoth from Lanyu, Taiwan mentioning only one species of H. livornica. Hundsdoerfer et al. (2005) analysed the genus Hyles with reference to its molecular phylogeny and used DNA sequence. Kamaluddin et al. (2007) in their checklist of moths of Pakistan and listed only four species of the family Sphingidae with their distributional range and host plants. Catania (2008) recorded the species of H. tithymali deserticola as new record from the Maltese island. Rafi et al. (2014) in their report the hawkmoth fauna of Pakistan included sixty species including nine species of the genus Hyles of the family Sphingidae with only their distributional ranges.