Coeliccia cyanomelas and its synonyms

Recently a paper was published by Yu et al. in IJO (2019) on Coeliccia cyanomelas. Before that, Steinhoff & Uhl (2015) had already shown that C. onoi was a junior synonym of C. cyanomelas. Now, Yu et al. showed that C. wilsoni, C. sexmaculata and C. mingxiensis were also junior synonyms of C. cyanomelas. And, if you have been following these pages, you will be aware that I had reported C. mingxiensis too. It had first been recorded by Do in 2009 from Tam Dao. Because it looks strikingly different from all other species in the region, I never stopped to properly think when I saw similar specimens and assumed they were C. mingxiensis. I should have known better, because the color of the eyes and the weakness of their bodies indicated that these are immature specimens. Coeliccia cyanomelas is just an extreme example of changes in coloration during various stages of maturity as often observed in the genus. Here are a few photos showing different stages.

Here a fresh C. cyanomelas with the typical reddish shoulders, white-pink appendages and comma shaped antehumerals. This is what we used to call C. mingxiensis

This is the same specimen with the thorax in close-up. The color of the eyes is clearly immature.

This is a somewhat more mature male. The thorax is much darker above, with the antehumerals reduced to short lines, but the shoulder is still reddish. The abdomen tip is now white, not pink, and the eyes coloring properly too.

Here the reddish shoulders are gone and blue tones are evident.

This is just a variant, with additional small spots close to the wing base.

And thrown in: an adult female. Females similarly go through pale yellow stages first, but eventually turn blue like the mature males.