Drepanogynini Murillo-Ramos, Sihvonen & Brehm, 2019

Murillo-Ramos, Leidys, Brehm, Gunnar, Sihvonen, Pasi, Hausmann, Axel, Holm, Sille, Ghanavi, Hamid Reza, Õunap, Erki, Truuverk, Andro, Staude, Hermann, Friedrich, Egbert, Tammaru, Toomas & Wahlberg, Niklas, 2019, A comprehensive molecular phylogeny of Geometridae (Lepidoptera) with a focus on enigmatic small subfamilies, PeerJ 7, pp. 1-39 : 29-31

Drepanogynini Murillo-Ramos, Sihvonen & Brehm new tribe LSIDurn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:AA384988-009F-4175-B98C-6209C8868B93

Type genus: Drepanogynis Guenée, (1858)

The African genera Thenopa , Sphingomima and Drepanogynis appear as a strongly supported lineage (SH-like, UFBoot2 and RBS = 100). Krüger (1997, p. 259) proposed " Boarmiini and related tribes as the most likely sister group" for Drepanogynis , whereas more recently Drepanogynis was classified in the putative southern hemisphere Nacophorini ( Krüger, 2014; Sihvonen , Staude & Mutanen, 2015). In the current phylogeny, Drepanogynis is isolated from Nacophorini sensu stricto and from other southern African genera that have earlier been considered to be closely related to it ( Krüger, 2014 and references therein). The other southern African genera appeared to belong to Diptychini in our study. The systematic position of Drepanogynis tripartita (Warren, 1898) has earlier been analyzed in a molecular study ( Sihvonen , Staude & Mutanen, 2015). The taxon grouped together with the Palaearctic species of the tribes Apeirini , Theriini , Epionini and putative Hypochrosini . Sihvonen , Staude & Mutanen (2015) noted that Argyrophora trofonia (Cramer, 1779) (representing Drepanogynis group III sensu Krüger, 1999 ) and Drepanogynis tripartita (representing Drepanogynis group IV sensu Krüger, 2002 ) did not group together, but no formal changes were proposed. Considering that the current analysis strongly supports the placement of Drepanogynis and related genera in an independent lineage, and the aforementioned taxa in the sister lineage ( Apeirini , Theriini , Epionini and putative Hypochrosini ) have been validated at tribe-level, we place Drepanogynis and related genera in a tribe of their own.

Material examined and taxa included: Drepanogynis mixtaria ( Guenée, 1858) , D. tripartita , D. determinata (Walker, 1860) , D. arcuifera Prout, 1934 , D. arcuatilinea Krüger, 2002 , D. cnephaeogramma (Prout, 1938) , D. villaria (Felder & Rogenhofer, 1875) , “ Sphingomima ” discolucida Herbulot, 1995 (genus combination uncertain, see taxonomic notes below), Thenopa diversa Walker, 1855 , “ Hebdomophruda ” errans Prout, 1917 (genus combination uncertain, see taxonomic notes below).

Taxonomic notes: We choose Drepanogynis Guenée, 1858 as the type genus for Drepanogynini , although it is not the oldest valid name (ICZN Article 64), because extensive literature has been published on Drepanogynis ( Krüger, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2014), but virtually nothing exists on Thenopa, Walker, 1855 , except the original descriptions of its constituent species. Current results show the urgent need for more extensive phylogenetic studies within Drepanogynini . Thenopa and Sphingomima are embedded within Drepanogynis , rendering it paraphyletic, but our taxon coverage is too limited to propose formal changes in this species-rich group. Drepanogynini , as defined here, are distributed in sub-Saharan Africa. Drepanogynis sensu Krüger (1997, 1998 , 1999, 2014) includes over 150 species and it ranges from southern Africa to Ethiopia ( Krüger, 2002, Vári, Kroon & Krüger, 2002), whereas the genera Sphingomima (10 species) and Thenopa (four species) occur in Central and West Africa ( Scoble, 1999). Sphingomima and Thenopa are externally similar, so the recovered sister-group relationship in the current phylogeny analysis was anticipated. In the current analysis, Hebdomophruda errans Prout, 1917 is isolated from other analyzed Hebdomophruda species (the others are included in Diptychini ), highlighting the need for additional research. Krüger (1997, 1998) classified the genus Hebdomophruda into seven species groups on the basis of morphological characters, and H. errans group is one of them ( Krüger, 1998). We do not describe a new genus for the taxon errans , nor do we combine it with any genus in the Drepanogynini , highlighting its uncertain taxonomic position (incertae sedis) pending more research. In the current analysis, Sphingomima discolucida Herbulot, 1995 is transferred from unassigned tribus combination to Drepanogynini , but as the type species of Sphingomima ( S. heterodoxa Warren, 1899 ) was not analyzed, we do not transfer the entire genus Sphingomima into Drepanogynini . We highlight the uncertain taxonomic position of the taxon discolucida , acknowledging that it may eventually be included again in Sphingomima if the entire genus should be transferred to Drepanogynini .

Diagnosis: Drepanogynini can be diagnosed by the combination of DNA data with up to 11 genetic markers (exemplar Drepanogynis mixtaria ( Guenée, 1858)) ArgK ( MK738841 ), COI ( MK739615 ), EF1a ( MK739960 ), IDH ( MK740862 ), MDH ( MK741181 ), Nex9 ( MK741630 ), RpS5 ( MK741991 ) and Wingless ( MK742540 ). In the light of our phylogenetic results, the Drepanogynis group of genera, as classified earlier ( Krüger, 2014), is split between two unrelated tribes ( Drepanogynini and Diptychini ). More research is needed to understand how other Drepanogynis species and the Drepanogynis group of genera sensu Krüger (1997, 1998 , 1999, 2014) (at least 11 genera), should be classified.

Boarmiini are the sister group to a clade that comprises Macariini, Cassymini , Abraxini and Eutoeini . We found that many species currently classified as Boarmiini are scattered throughout Ennominae . Boarmiini s.str. are strongly supported but are technically not monophyletic because of a large number of genera which need to be formally transferred fromothertribestoBoarmiini (G. Brehmetal ., 2019, unpublisheddataforNeotropicaltaxa and L. Murillo-Ramos et al., 2019, unpublished data for other taxa). The results are principally in concordance with Jiang et al. (2017), who supported the monophyly of Boarmiini but with a smaller number of taxa.

The divided valva in male genitalia was suggested as a synapomorphy of Macariini + Cassymini + Eutoeini by Holloway (1994). In addition, he proposed the inclusion of Abraxini in Cassymini . Although our findings support a close relationship, this group requires more study and a more extensive sampling effort. Similar findings were provided by Jiang et al. (2017) who suggested more extensive sampling to study the evolutionary relationships of these tribes.