Rhyothemis variegata (Linnaeus, 1763)

Synonymy of Rhyothemis variegata View in CoL and R. phyllis

The near identity of sequences of both markers (just 0.5% of positions variable) from all analysed specimens identifiable as R. phyllis and/or R. variegata from the same swarm from Cambodia, with representatives of both presumed species mixed, without correlation with phenotypes ( Tables 3, 4), and also from two specimens of R. variegata from the Western Ghats, is an equivocal evidence in favour of one biological species. The COI sequences associated with these two species names from GenBank were nearly identical as well ( Fig. 4 View FIGURE 4 ). So the following synonymy should be established at the species rank level:

Rhyothemis variegata ( Linnaeus, 1763) View in CoL , valid name = Rhyothemis phyllis ( Sulzer, 1776) View in CoL , junior subjective synonym (synonymum novum).

This circumstance may be illustrated by a photo by Stephan Wagenbach taken in Cambodia, which shows a copula of a male unequivocally identifiable as R. phyllis View in CoL (phenotype A) with a ‘typical’ R. variegata- female (phenotype D) ( Fig. 5 View FIGURE 5 ) (iNaturalist 2025: observation 253133592). Since interspecies copulae occur in Odonata View in CoL quite often, this is just an illustration and by no means an additional proof.

A direct proof that the phenotypes associated with the names R. variegata and R. phyllis belong to the same species is provided from another photograph from iNaturalist (2025: observation 130496256) made in by Phuwarin Suchartbunmak in Pa Yup Nai Subdistrict, Wang Chan District, Rayong Province, Thailand ( Fig. 6 View FIGURE 6 ). It shows a bilateral gynandromorph of the species considered. It is imperfect since the abdomen looks like entirely male. Anyway, the left wings exhibit the phenotype A, most frequent in males in that area, while the right wings exhibit the phenotype D, found only in females. (A dark subapical patch at the right fore wing is noteworthy as locally showing the opposite (male) phenotype, further evidencing of imperfection of this gynandromorph.) It is well known that in insects and some other creatures in which some sexual characters are determined by cell own genotypes rather than hormones or morphogens, bilateral gynandromorhs occur when a sexual chromosome is lost during embryonic cell cleavage, so that the resulting cell clone further exhibits features of the opposite sex ( Goodenough 1984; Kosterin 2022). This photo proves that the phenotypes A and D, earlier associated with the names R. phyllis and R. variegata , respectively, in fact result from just two different genetic programs within the same species.