Abstract: Phylogenetic analysis of 5 Chinese species of the genus Polyura was conducted based on mitochondrial COII sequences. The results showed that there were 11.4% polymorphic loci in 405 bp length of partial COII in 12 specimens of the 5 species of Polyura, and most of them were transformed through transition. The difference among individuals within species (0.5%-1.5%) was almost all lower than the difference among species (>4%), except that the difference between 2 individuals of P. athamas was higher than that between P. eudamippusand P. nepenthes. The dendrogram of the Chinese Polyura inferred by maximum likelihood method showed that there are 2 distinct clusters in the Chinese Polyura, in which one includes P. narcaea, P. eudamippus and P. nepenthes, and the other includes P. schreiber and P. athamas. The topological structure of the dendrogram is consistent with the morphological result. Therefore, the results of molecular phylogenetic analysis support the morphological results in genus Polyura.

Key words: Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae, Polyura, mitochondrial COII, phylogenetic analysis, China