Taxacom: Barcodes and species

[John Grehan]

As I am pretty ignorant of technical details of species designation and
barcode identity, I would be grateful for any feedback on whether it is
possible for two 'species' to have identical 'barcodes' (never liked that
label with its essentialist connotations).

I have a colleague who has collected some ghost moths from the same date
and location. There are two morphs - for simplicity 'white spot' and
'plain'. Dissections of genitalia also show differences, with the white
spot and plain each showing consistent differences, although only 2
specimens for white spot and 3 for plain. Even with this small sample I am
kind of intrigued that the external difference matches the internal
difference.

The genitalic differences are prominent enough that I would normally view
them as indicative of species difference. Perhaps there is a single
polymorphic species, but correlated external and internal differences were
a bit of a surprise. Any comments or enlightenment would be very welcome.

Cheers, John

-- 
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