Parasiomera Sáfián & Collins, 2015

Sáfián, Szabolcs & Collins, Steve C., 2015, Establishment of a new genus for Eresiomera paradoxa (Schultze, 1917) and related taxa (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) with description of two new species, Zootaxa 4018 (1), pp. 124-136 : 126-127

Parasiomera Sáfián & Collins gen. nov.

( FIGS. 1 ; 2A,B,C,D; 3A,D; 4; 5; 6, 7)

Type species: Pseuderesia paradoxa Schultze, 1917 .

Description. Forewing length: Wingspan: 25–28 mm. The upperside ground colour is deep fiery orange or bright orange, with black apex and outer margin on the forewing. The width of the black margin is variable but it tapers down towards the tornus and along to costa. The hindwing also has a black border between the apex and the tornus and a black band or black scaling along the inner margin. The underside is uniformic paler orange with a narrow, black marginal line framing both wings, the line along the forewing costa has a few small black spots. Black dusting appears all over the underside more densely along the forewing costa and the sub-marginal area of both wings. The dorsal side of the body is orange and brown, whereas the ventral side is pale orange. The legs and the antennae are black ringed with white. The eyes are dark chocolate brown or black, large and smooth.

Genitalia. The general appearence of the genitalic armature is unique, placing the genus near Pseuderesia and Eresiomera . The tegumen is shield-shaped, resembling an irregular hexagon from anteroposterior view. The uncus is not bifid, the sub-unci missing and the valvae are paralelogram-shaped. The aedeagus is of unique shape, branching and the dorsal projection is rather weakly sclerotised. Its distal end is strongly recurved ( Figs. 3 A,D, 6). Female genitalia are rather simple with medium sized, slightly oval bursa copulatrix, broad ductus bursae, rather strongly sclerotised rounded lamellae, broad papillae analis and short, gently curving apophyses posteriores.

Diagnosis. The uniformic bright or fiery orange upperside ground colour with the black margins on both wings, the uniformic pale orange or deep ochreous yellow underside with the fine black marginal line are highly diagnostic to Parasiomera . Although all species in both Eresiomera and Pseuderesia carry orange colour to a variable extent, they are dominated by darker brown or blackish colour either on one or both surface or show heavy brown spotting on the upperside. The hindwing underside is distinctively multicoloured in Pseuderesia , including black spotting, while the hindwings in Eresiomera are usually dark or chocolate brown with orange spotting. Similarly to Eresiomera , the wings are rather rounded in Parasiomera , while both sexes have rather prolonged wingshape in Pseuderesia . The wingshape in Eresiomera are short and distinctively broad. Moreover Parasiomera do not show strong sexual dimorphisum, with only minor differences in the extent and width of black margin on both wings, whereas all taxa in the closely related Eresiomera and Pseuderesia are strongly dimorphic ( Fig. 2 ).

The male genitalia of Parasiomera also show consistent differences compared to its sister genera Pseuderesia and Eresiomera . The valvae of Parasiomera lack the long hook-like terminal projection of Pseuderesia (more variable in Eresiomera and also missing in E. isca )( Stempffer 1967), while the shape of the aedeagi in all species are consistently different from those in Eresiomera , placing Parasiomera right next to the two genera ( Fig. 3 ). Stempffer (1961) also refers that P. paradoxa might be an orange species in the genus Citrinophila , but from the genitalic structure they look more distant. The valvae of all Citrinophila are narrower and more elongated, their uncus is also significantly narrower in the anteroposterior view and are bifid ( Stempffer 1967). Further species of all genera are illustrated on high quality colour images in Larsen (2005) and d’Abrera (2009).

Etymology. Noun. Feminine. The name Parasiomera is derived from the generic name of their supposedly most closely related genus Eresiomera with reference to their resemblence.

Figures

FIGURE 1. The only existing female syntype (designated as lectotype below) of Eresiomera paradoxa (Schultze, 1917) (Aupperside, B—underside) in the Museum für Naturkunde (Natural History Musem), Berlin.

FIGURE 2. Adults: Parasiomera paradoxa male (Ebogo, Cameroon) A—upperside, B—underside; P. p ar a do x a female (Ebogo, Cameroon) C—upperside, D—underside; Pseuderesia eleaza male (Pobé Forest, Benin) E—upperside, F—underside; Pseuderesia eleaza female (Pobé Forest, Benin) G—upperside, H—underside; Eresiomera bicolor male (Pobé Forest, Benin) I—upperside, J—underside and Eresiomera bicolor female (Pobé Forest, Benin) K—upperside, L—underside.

FIGURE 3. Comparison of male genitalic armature between Parasiomera, Pseuderesia and Eresiomera: P. pa r ad ox a (lectotype) A—valvae (caudal view), D—aedeagus (lateral view); P. eleaza B—valvae (caudal view), E—aedeagus (lateral view); E. bicolor C—valvae (caudal view), F—aedeagus (lateral view) (the latter two were re-drawn from Stempffer’s original (1967) where no scale was included).