Spilarctia mikeli Bolotov, Kondakov & Spitsyn, 2018

Bolotov, Ivan N., Kondakov, Alexander V. & Spitsyn, Vitaly M., 2018, A review of tiger moths (Lepidoptera: Erebidae: Arctiinae: Arctiini) from Flores Island, Lesser Sunda Archipelago, with description of a new species and new subspecies, Ecologica Montenegrina 16, pp. 1-15 : 10-12

Spilarctia mikeli Bolotov, Kondakov & Spitsyn sp. nov.

Fig. 4

Type material. Holotype female, INDONESIA, Lesser Sundas, East Nusa Tenggara, Flores Island: Sano Ngoang Lake , camp site, secondary mountain forest with old nutmeg trees on a hill slope, 8º42’33.50”S, 119 º59’51”E, 21-22 January 2015, Bolotov leg. ( RMBH, voucher no. SPH0695).

Etymology: This new species is named in honor of Mr. Mikel Albarran Valle, an enthusiastic amateur naturalist, who lives on Flores Island.

Diagnosis. The new species is similar to Spilarctia wahri ( Rothschild, 1933) from Timor, S. mindanao Dubatolov & Kishida, 2010 [= S. trikenzana ( Cerný, 2011) ] and S. mollis ( Cerný, 2011) from the Philippines, but differs by reduced black markings on the hindwing, with stigma spot, postdiscal dot near the stigma, a row of a few minute postdiscal black dots, and two minute submarginal marks. The female of S. wahri has two black spots near the tornus and two black dots near the apex; the forewings are dark brown ( Rothschild, 1933). The female of S. mindanao has lunular black spot in cell and three black spots in submarginal area. The female of S. mollis has black spot in cell and black submarginal band consisting of four partly conjoined patches.

Description. Female morphology: Wingspan 41 mm, forewing length 21 mm. Head with frons equal to eye diameter. Labial palpi stout, upright, short (slightly longer than eye diameter), underside ciliate (with scarce short ciliae). Proboscis small, weakly developed. Antennae long, filiform, thinner apically, with two short ciliae on each segment. Abdomen long. Female markings: Head and antennae brown. Labial palpi brown with black end. Thorax dorsally brown. Underside of thorax red-brown. Legs light orange-pink. Tegulae brown. Abdomen dorsally bright rose-red with large, rounded black spots on each tergite, distal end brownish black. The ventral side of the abdomen yellow pink. Forewing light brown, with rows of small, unclear blackish spots in postbasal, postdical and postmarginal areas, and two black spots at the base of the wing. Hindwing bright rose-red, black markings strongly reduced, with rounded stigma spot, one postdiscal spot near the stigma, a row of a few minute postdiscal black dots athwart to the anal margin, and two submarginal marks. Underside of both wings orange-pink, with rows of black postdiscal and submarginal spots. Black discal spot on each wing. Female genitalia: Not examined.

Male is unknown.

DNA barcoding: Reference COI sequence no. MG735265 . There are no available nearest members in GenBank and BOLD IDS. The new species looks morphologically similar to taxa in the subgenus Praephragmatobia Dubatolov & Kishida, 2010 , but it is genetically distant from Spilarctia strigatula group ( Fig. 6 ).

Distribution: West Flores; only known from the type locality.

Remarks: A series of Spilarctia sp. with dark brown forewings from Timor in the collection of the Museum Witt (CMWM), München, fits well with the description of S. wahri ( Rothschild, 1933) , although De Vos and Suhartawan (2011: p. 313) assume that it may be an undescribed species.

Figures

Figure 4. Spilarctia mikeli sp. nov., ♀ holotype from Flores Island, Lesser Sundas, Indonesia (RMBH, voucher no. Sph0695): A) upperside; B) underside. Scale bar: 10 mm. Photos: Vitaly M. Spitsyn.

Figure 6. Fifty-percent majority-rule consensus phylogenetic tree of Spilarctia spp. and related taxa recovered from Bayesian analysis with 26 in-group COI haplotypes (see Table 2 for details). A haplotype of Theretra natashae was used as an out-group. Black numbers near branches are Bayesian posterior probabilities. The scale bar indicates branch lengths (nucleotide substitutions per site).