Is Sicily an island too far for Papilio saharae? Why is Papilio machaon rushed in where P. saharae is feared to tread? (Lepidoptera : Papilionidae)

Abstract

Papilio saharae Oberthür, 1879 (Papilionidae) was reported from Sicily on a handful of occasions in the last decade or so. On at least two instances, the taxon was claimed to have been discovered in museum collections, respectively by Moonen (2012) at the Zoological Museum, Amsterdam (ZMA) and Leraut (2016) at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. These records and a proposed nomenclatural change for P. machaon melitensis, were subsequently rejected by Coutsis et al. (2018). The present contribution provides a critique of the methodologies employed by the various authors and acknowledges that there remains much scope to investigate the P. machaon-complex further while maintaining that a more holistic approach is required to better understand the multidimensional dynamics that have shaped the biogeography of the central Mediterranean area.