Eilema Hübner, [1819]

Macià, Ramon, Ylla, Josep, Gastón, Javier, Huertas, Manuel & Bau, Josep, 2022, The species of Eilema Hübner, [1819] sensu lato present in Europe and North Africa (Lepidoptera: Erebidae: Arctiinae: Lithosiini), Zootaxa 5191 (1), pp. 1-87 : 12-13

Genus Eilema Hübner, [1819]

Eilema Hübner, [1819] , Verzichnis bekannter Schmettlinge [sic!]: 165.

Type species: Bombyx caniola Hübner, [1808] , by subsequent designation of Moore (1878), Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1878: 17 .

Diagnosis.

Imago. Forewings narrow, with an almost straight costa and termen and pale subcostal stripe. Superficially, resembling many other groups of Eilema sensu lato.

Male genitalia. Uncus wide, flattened laterally in the terminal part, the apex with a thin tip, usually curved in the shape of a beak or hook; valvae generally oval without costal process and with membranous midapical field; extreme of the valvae with saccular process (or saccular extensions) well developed, sclerotised and fused with the valvae giving the whole a rounded appearance; clasper of a triangular shape; juxta with lateral apical processes; vinculum broad, trapezoidal, elongated, membranous, with sclerotised edges, apex bilobed. Aedeagus stubby, not very slender, and always with a short sclerotised apical spur, with one or two cornuti of unequal size, which may be disproportionate; vesica bag-shaped with irregular lobes.

Female genitalia. Anal papillae well developed and slightly sclerotised; anterior and posterior apophyses short and thin; 8th segment very short, narrow and weakly sclerotised; lamella postvaginalis cup-shaped, more or less sclerotised; ductus bursae short, broad and sclerotised; corpus bursae spherical, membranous, with the presence of a small, inconspicuous circular signum; cervix bursae provided with a thick membranous wart on its back lined internally by countless small spinules giving the appearance of a discontinuous sclerotised plaque.

Molecular data. The Eilema genus clade is strongly supported by Bayesian Inference tree (PP=1), the cluster analysis returned a single group and all sequences matched a published BIN (BOLD: AAF6264). This genus is closely related to Manulea species, being the Eilema-Manulea group also a well-supported group (PP=1) ( Fig. 119 ). The extended phylogenetic analysis including all sequences available in BOLD published under Eilema or Manulea genera reinforces the consistency of this group, as no additional species end up positioned within the group or in close relation ( Fig. 120 ).

Despite the fact that this species clade does not split in more than one RESL cluster, the intraspecific p-distance of COI-5P marker ( Table 2) for Eilema caniola was 0.75% ± 0.24 SE, which almost doubles the average for all species under study (0.42% ± 1.8SE).

Taxa included

Eilema caniola caniola (Hübner, [1808])

Eilema caniola torstenii Mentzer, 1980

Figures

FIGURE 119. Radial representation of the unrooted phylogenetic tree obtained by Bayesian Inference. The combined data from the mitochondrial marker COI and the nuclear markers ArgK and DDX23 have been run in three different partitions in the BEAST2 software. Posterior probability values are displayed beside the nodes. For clarity, the branches under the species or subspecies nodes have been collapsed indicating the number of specimens for each taxon. Font colour indicates distinct groups as discussed in the text: Green: Eilema genus; Light blue: Manulea genus; Dark blue: lutarella group from Indalia genus; Yellow: uniola group from Indalia genus; Orange: predotae group from Indalia genus; Red: Nyea genus; Violet: Setema genus; Black: remaining species under study and outgroup species (Nudaria mundana).

FIGURE 120. Phylogenetic tree representation obtained by Bayesian Inference of the extended dataset including the COI Barcode sequences published in BOLD as Eilema or Manulea genus and the sequences obtained in this study. The combined data from the mitochondrial marker COI and the nuclear markers ArgK and DDX23 have been run in three different partitions in BEAST2. Posterior probability values are displayed beside the nodes. For clarity, the branches under the species or subspecies nodes have been collapsed indicating the number of specimens for each taxon next to the countries of collection (AU: Austria; CRO: Croatia; CYP: Cyprus; CZR: Czech Republic; DE: Denmark; FI: Finland; Fr: France; GE: Germany; GR: Greece; IT: Italy; MAC: Macedonia; NL: Netherlands; NOR: Norway; PAK: Pakistan; RU: Russia; SP: Spain; UK: United Kingdom). Branches in grey color and font correspond to clades not reviewed in the current work. In all other cases, font colour indicates distinct clades as discussed in the text: Green: Eilema genus; Light blue: Manulea genus; Dark blue: lutarella group from Indalia genus; Yellow: uniola group from Indalia genus; Orange: predotae group from Indalia genus; Red: Nyea genus; Violet: Setema genus; Black: remaining species under study and outgroup species (Nudaria mundana).