Lerema (Morys) venias (Bell, 1942) Zhang & Cong & Shen & Grishin, 2022

Zhang, Jing, Cong, Qian, Shen, Jinhui & Grishin, Nick V., 2022, Taxonomic changes suggested by the genomic analysis of Hesperiidae (Lepidoptera), Insecta Mundi 2022 (921), pp. 1-135 : 70

Lerema (Morys) venias (Bell, 1942) , new combination

Papias venias Bell, 1942 (type locality Venezuela) was placed in Cobalopsis Godman, 1900 (type species Pamphila edda Mabille, 1891 , which is junior subjective synonym of Hesperia autumna Plötz, 1882 ) by Evans (1955) who inspected no specimens of this taxon. Genomic sequencing of P. venias holotype (NVG-18026H11) in AMNH reveals that it is sister to Lerema (Morys) compta (Butler, 1877) specimen from Guyana ( Fig. 14 ): COI barcode difference between them is 1.7% (11 bp). Therefore, we confidently place P.venias in the genus Lerema Scudder, 1872 (type species Papilio accius J. E. Smith, 1797 ) in the subgenus Morys Godman, 1900 (type species Morys valda Evans, 1955 ). Then, not willing to err on synonymizing P. venias with L. compta , due to some degree of genetic differentiations, we tentatively treat it as a distinct species Lerema (Morys) venias (Bell, 1942) , new combination.

Figures

Figure 14. Genomic tree of Moncina, part 2. See Fig. 1 legend for notations.