Astraptes viracocha, BROWER, 2010

BROWER, ANDREW V. Z., 2010, Alleviating the taxonomic impediment of DNA barcoding and setting a bad precedent: names for ten species of ‘ Astraptes fulgerator’ (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae: Eudaminae) with DNA-based diagnoses, Systematics and Biodiversity 8 (4), pp. 485-491 : 488

Astraptes viracocha sp. nov.

Type locality. Costa Rica, Alajuela Prov. Area de Conservacion Guanacaste, Sector Cacao, Sendero Circular , 10.92714 ° N, 85.46683 ° W, 1185 m .

Diagnosis. The species may be differentiated from other members of the Astraptes fulgerator complex by the following unique character states of the DNA barcode: 379G; 389C; 391G.

Holotype. Voucher 02-SRNP-24219 , deposited at the University of Pennsylvania.

Note: This species corresponds to the OTU ‘LONCHO’ of Hebert et al. (2004).

Etymology. The name viracocha , a noun in apposition, is the name of a bearded white god of the Incas. The species is named for Dan Janzen.

The phenetic cluster ‘NUMT’ of Hebert et al. (2004) differs from the named Astraptes species above by more character states than most of the latter differ from one another ( Brower, 2006). Hebert et al. (2004) dismissed those sequences as nuclear pseudogenes, an explanation Brower (2006) showed to be extremely unlikely. Nevertheless, since the butterflies bearing these sequences have not been identified as a taxon by their discoverers, I refrain from applying a name to them here.