Chrysoritis aridimontis Heath & Pringle 2007. stat. nov.

Holotype: Ditsong NM. Type locality: Elandsberg (WC). This species is only known from the type locality. Host plants unrecorded.

MPT: montane prominences on northwest facing slopes. Host ant: Crem. gallicola.

Taxonomy: Formerly C. adonis aridimontis, it is similar in appearance to C. adonis; the geographic distance between the two discrete populations is 190 km and their different ecologies indicate separate species. C. aridimontis is polyphyletic in the COI tree where the two lineages occur in separate clades (thysbe mt Clades 1 and 3) but are sympatric. The sample AH07C 166 in Clade 1 has facies similar to C. aridimontis; it was collected with other similar specimens in 2008 (A. Heath and H. Selb) at Elandsberg, WC, the exact and only locality known for C. aridimontis. The MPT for these individuals collected in 2008 were noted to be montane slopes and prominences, very similar to C. aridimontis s.s. which was not seen at the time these were collected. This specimen was deemed to be C. aridimontis by E. Pringle, and A. Heath reckoned it looked very similar to C. aridimontis but with minor differences. As C. plutus also occurs at that location, it was earlier postulated to be an aridimontis – plutus hybrid. However, the COI tree groups it with neither C. plutus nor the other C. aridimontis specimens (and nuclear data are absent), thus it is not a hybrid. The COI-polyphyly of C. aridimontis is possibly a product of past capture (historical introgression) of a mitochondrial lineage from a taxon now extinct. However, it is not possible to infer which of the mtDNA lineages was present during speciation and which was later “captured” through hybridization. Chrysoritis adonis aridimontis is here raised to Chrysoritis aridimontis stat. nov.

Conservation status: LC – Ex Rare.