DNA-Based Discrimination of Subspecies of Swallowtail Butterflies

Many studies have shown that taxon identification based on DNA sequences can facilitate the recognition of known species and the discovery of new species (Blaxter 2005, Hebert et al. 2003a b). DNA sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene can serve as a DNA barcode for identifying all kinds of animals (Hebert et al. 2003a b 2004a, Ward et al. 2005), especially cryptic species in tropical regions (Wilcox et al. 1997, Berkov 2002, Hebert et al. 2004b, Monaghan et al. 2005, Hajibabaei et al. 2006) and insects at differen