Palaeophilotes triphysina, (Staudinger, 1892) (Staudinger, 1892)

Distribution range of P. triphysina View in CoL

The species is described from specimens collected by the famous collector Eugene Rückbeil ( Novomodnyi & Shergalin 2019) in western China in Kashgaria (“ von Rückbeil im Kaschgar-Gebiet gefangen”) (Staudinger 1892). All reliable indications of the presence of this species refer to the southern part of Xinjiang Province in western China (“ Kaschgar ”, “ Aksu ”, “ Xinjiang, Weili County ” ( Staudinger 1892, Zhdanko 2000; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih. gov/nuccore/OQ311404, accessed on 23 August 2024; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/ ON437016 View Materials , accessed on 23 August 2024) that is, to the territory known in historical geographical literature as Kashgaria.

There are indications of the presence of this species in the Ili River valley in southeastern Kazakhstan ( Korb 2013; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/OQ311406, accessed on 23 August 2024) and northern Mongolia ( Yakovlev & Doroshkin 2004). A subspecies P. triphysina lama Yakovlev & Doroshkin, 2004 has even been described from northern Mongolia. We do not exclude that the indications for Kazakhstan and Mongolia are based on mislabeled and partly ( Korb 2013) on misidentified specimens. At present, the butterfly faunas of Kazakhstan and Mongolia are relatively well studied ( Tshikolovets et al. 2009, 2016); however, this species has not yet been found in these countries by other researchers.