Homziak et al 2023 used molecular and ecological analyses to confirm the relationships within Catocala and between Catocala and Ulotrichopus . . .
Abstract . . . . Here we reconstruct the first comprehensive molecular phylogeny for the genus based on 685 anchored hybrid enrichment loci sampled from 161 Catocala species (99 Nearctic, 62 Palearctic), four species of Ulotrichopus Wallengren and 33 outgroups. Phylogenetic analysis unambiguously recovers Catocala and Catocala + Ulotrichopus as monophyletic with strong support and resolves many backbone relationships within Catocala. . . . .
Phylogenetic analyses Maximum likelihood trees of the concatenated nucleotide dataset (Figures1, S1, S2) and amino acid dataset (Figures S3, S4) recovered strong support for the monophyly of Catocala+Ulotrichopus (UFBoot/SH-aLRT=100/100; node 1), African Ulotrichopus (node 2) and Catocala (node 3; Figures1, 2). Similarly, ASTRAL analyses recovered strong support for the monophyly of Catocala+Ulotrichopus (LPP=1), African Ulotrichopus (LPP=1) and Catocala (LPP=1; Figures S5, S6). The nucleotide analysis placed the Asian U. macula as sister to Catocala with moderate support (UFBoot/SH-aLRT=88/91.4). This relationship was also recovered in the ASTRALanalysis but with low support (LPP=0.73), while the amino acid analysis placed U. macula as sister to the African Ulotrichopus clade with moderate support (UFBoot/SH-aLRT=89/94.6). We did not findsupport for a paraphyletic relationship between Catocala and Ulotrichopus as indicated by Mitter and Silverfine (1988) and Kühne (2005). Our results suggest that Catocala and African Ulotrichopus may be monophyletic sister taxa.
i.e. (Catocala (U. macula (African Ulotrichopus)))
As a coauthor on the Homziak et al 2023 paper, I agree with @hkmoths that this taxonomic swap is appropriate at this time. However, I ask that users stay tuned for more developments as this study was just a start and included only 4 Ulotrichopus species. I've been working on this topic for over ten years and there is more to come.
I note that the Asian macula sits between Ulotrichopus from Africa and Catocala........ sitting on the proverbial fence!
closer to the African material if the genes are interpreted correctly, right? Do I get to read between the lines that macula may be placed in its own genus in due course?
Unintended disagreements occur when a parent (B) is
thinned by swapping a child (E) to another part of the
taxonomic tree, resulting in existing IDs of the parent being interpreted
as disagreements with existing IDs of the swapped child.
Identification
ID 2 of taxon E will be an unintended disagreement with ID 1 of taxon B after the taxon swap
If thinning a parent results in more than 10 unintended disagreements, you
should split the parent after swapping the child to replace existing IDs
of the parent (B) with IDs that don't disagree.
As a coauthor on the Homziak et al 2023 paper, I agree with @hkmoths that this taxonomic swap is appropriate at this time. However, I ask that users stay tuned for more developments as this study was just a start and included only 4 Ulotrichopus species. I've been working on this topic for over ten years and there is more to come.