''Colias leechi'' is a very little known

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...

in the family

Pieridae The Pieridae are a large family of butterflies with about 76 genera containing about 1,100 species, mostly from tropical Africa and tropical Asia with some varieties in the more northern regions of North America and Eurasia.DeVries P. J. in Levi ...

. It was described from the East

Palearctic The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. The realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Sibe ...

"In ramificationibus occidentalibus montium Himalayensium in valle Chonging" ( altitude).

Chongqing Chongqing ( or ; ; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), Postal Romanization, alternately romanized as Chungking (), is a Direct-administered municipalities of China, municipality in Southwes ...

covers a large area crisscrossed by rivers and mountains. None are high enough to fit the description and Röber gives

Sikkim Sikkim (; ) is a state in Northeastern India. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China in the north and northeast, Bhutan in the east, Province No. 1 of Nepal in the west and West Bengal in the south. Sikkim is also close to the Siligur ...

as the locality and the British Museum card gives the type locality as West Himalaya Ladak.

Taxonomy

Described as a variety of ''

Colias eogene ''Colias eogene'', the fiery clouded yellow, is a small butterfly of the family Pieridae, that is, the yellows and whites, which is found in India. See also *List of butterflies of India *List of butterflies of India (Pieridae) This is a list o ...

''.

The Global Lepidoptera Names Index The Global Lepidoptera Names Index (LepIndex) is a searchable database maintained by the Department of Entomology at the Natural History Museum, London. It is based on card indices and scanned journals, nomenclatural catalogues and the '' Zoologi ...

treats ''leechi'' as ''

Colias staudingeri ''Colias staudingeri'' is a butterfly in the family Pieridae. It is found in Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The habitat consists of alpine meadows at altitudes between 2,000 and 3,900 meters. Adults are on wing from June to July. Subs ...

'' ssp. ''leechi''. Accepted as a species by Josef Grieshuber & Gerardo Lamas

References

Butterflies described in 1893 leechi {{Pieridae-stub