Are there butterflies with Gondwanan ancestry in the Australian region?

Abstract

A sister-group relationship of endemic taxa in at least two Gondwanan fragments is considered an indication of a possible Gondwanan ancestry. Without a test of the age of the relationship, such an ancestry remains hypothetical. The relationships of all genera and higher taxa endemic to the Australian region with endemic taxa in other fragments of Gondwana are tested. Out of a total of 207 butterfly genera, 96 genera are endemic. Such a relationship is supported by morphological and molecular characters in a number of analyses in only one case(Cressida with Euryades, in South America). Application of a molecular clock, however, shows the relationship to be not older than c. 30 million years, too young to be the result of the break-up of Gondwana. The other endemic genera generally point to a relationship with the Oriental region, but the relationships of a few genera are still obscure. Consequently, claims of a Gondwanan ancestry in butterflies of the Australian region are ill founded. If such an ancestry exists, it has been obscured by later dispersals and extinctions.