Molecular phylogeny of butterflies Parnassius glacialis and P. stubbendorfii at various

The phylogeny of butterflies, Parnassius stubbendorfii and P. glacialis, collected at various localities in the Japan archipelago and the eastern part of the Asian continent was analyzed using mitochondrial DNA sequences coding for NADH de-hydrogenase subunit 5 (805 bp). The molecular phylogenetic trees revealed that P. glacialis and P. stubbendorfii diverged from a common ancestor, and then the popu-lations inhabiting the Japan archipelago and the Asian continent diverged in each species. The reliability of these divergences was supported by high bootstrap values. The divergences within the Japan archipelago and within the Asian conti-nent in each species were unclear because of low bootstrap values. The genetic distance and a rough time-estimation in the UPGMA tree suggest that the both populations of P. glacialis and P. stubbendorfii may have been isolated in the Japan archipelago at the early time (about 1.7–2.0 Mya) of the glacial period in the Pleistocene. The genetic distance between the Japanese and the continental sub-species may be large enough that they can be classified as different species, in com-parison with the genetic distances among some other parnassian species