Noor Azrizal-Wahid, Mohd Sofian-Azirun, Mohammed Rizman-Idid
Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
Institute of Ocean and Earth Sciences, C308 IGS Building, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Key words: Eurema, Morphology, Characterization, Variation, Distribution.
Seven species of Eurema butterflies comprised of 263 adult individuals collected from various sampling sites of Peninsular Malaysia were identified and diagnosed based on their morphological characteristics and variation pattern. The result from diagnosis revealed that the main morphological characteristics that differentiated between the members of Eurema butterflies are the number of cell spots in discoidal cell and the pattern of brown apical patch, both located on the underside of the forewing. E. sari, E. blanda and E. tilaha are morphologically distinct and easily identified. Species of Eurema butterflies showed no variations, except for E. hecabe that had variable patterns of forewing black apical border in several individuals, which corresponded to the altitudinal changes of their sampling sites. The distribution of the genus Eurema in Peninsular Malaysia is also discussed based on the recorded field sampling data. The record shows that all six species with the exception of E. tilaha which was excluded from this study were evenly distributed across all sampling areas and can be found at most part throughout the Peninsular Malaysia with species of E. andersonii has the most consistent distribution pattern in all four different areas of sampling. This study also suggested that the most common species of the genus Eurema in Malaysia is species of E. blanda while E. tilaha was reported as the rare species.