Phylogenetic relationships among the Nymphalidae (Lepidoptera) inferred from partial sequences of the wingless gene.

A cladistic analysis was performed on a 378 bp region of the wingless gene from 103 nymphalid species and three pierid outgroups in order to infer higher level patterns of relationship among nymphalid subfamilies and tribes. Although the data are highly homoplastic, in many instances the most parsimonious cladograms corroborate traditionally recognized groups. The results suggest that this short gene region provides a useful source of data for phylogenetic inference, provided that adequate effort is made to sample a diversity of taxa.