The joined evolutionary history of Biblidinae butterflies (Nymphalidae) throughout South America and Africa

Several geographic areas were important to the diversification of Nymphalidae clades, and dispersion was suggested to be the major force modeling the current distribution of species. Here we used phylogenetic relationships of Biblidinae butterflies, with estimative of divergence time, combined with ecological data of host plant use, to address the reasons that led to the great diversification and co-occurrence of this group in Neotropical and Palaeotropical environments. We used molecular and morphological data to propose a phylogenetic hypothesis for the group, using Maximum Parsimony (MP) and Bayesian Inference. Host plants families were optimized on the consensus MP tree. The results we have so far point out that this is a relatively recent group, with the tribes diverging between 37 and 27 MYA, and with most genera originated in the Oligocene. The preferable use of plants of the family Sapindaceae emerged only once in its evolutionary history, between 40 and 36 MYA, which is the estimated age of the ancestor branch of tribes Epiphilini and Callicorini.