The Geologic Significance of Libythea collenettei (Lepidoptera: Libytheidae) Endemic to the Marquesas Islands, South-Central Pacific

Abstract

Libythea collenettei of the Marquesas Islands is an isolated eastern Polynesian species that was probably derived from L. geoffroy batchiana of eastern Indonesia. Its approximate 9000 km eastward dispersal is probably related to seafloor spreading and fault-displacement history of the Campanian-Cenozoic South Pacific rather than to man, birds, aerial and ocean currents, or migration transport.