Shaanxiana australis, Hsu, Yu-Feng, 2015

Hsu, Yu-Feng, 2015, A new species of Shaanxiana (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) from southern China, Zootaxa 4027 (1), pp. 130-134 : 130-133

Shaanxiana australis , sp. nov.

( Figs. 2 – 3 ,8 – 9)

Type material. HOLOTYPE ♂ (genitalia preparation YFH 1527): CHINA: GUANGDONG Province, Shaoguan Shi, Ruyuan Xian, Ruyang, 675 m, VI. 25. 2000. Coll. Y.-F. Hsu. (IOZ)

Description. Male. FL 22.2 mm; AL 9.0 mm. Head: hairy, vertex, frons dark brown but with white ventrad; a white, narrow rim surrounding eye; eye semi-oval, smooth; labial palpus porrect, with 3rd segment pointed distad, mostly covered with white, with dark brown scaling distally; maxillary palpus reduced, invisible; proboscis brown, unscaled; antenna slightly swollen distad, smoothly scaled, mostly brown but with some white scalings on each flagellomere, bearing trichodea at distal end. Thorax: dark brown dorsad, white ventrad; tegulae flap-like, tapering posteriad; legs white, mottled with brown on tarsi, foretarsus 5-segmented. Forewing: Termen slightly concave, costa and dorsum nearly straight. Ground color of upperside uniformly brown. Ground color of underside pale yellow. Submarginal band forming a dark brown band with narrow, orange, ripple-like inner band, and a white outer band containing two short dark brown dashes in each cell. "g"-element [as defined by Nijhout (1991)] forming a series of slivery white, crescent-shaped spots. Fringe white, brown at distal ends of veins. Hindwing: CuA2 bearing a "tail"-like projection distad [mostly lost but with stub visible in holotype]. A small lobe present at tornus. Ground color of upperside brown. A patch of orange present at hindwing tornus. Ground color of underside pale yellow. Wing pattern similar to those of forewing except a dark brown dot replacing white band in cell CuA1, a black spot present at tornus. Fringe white, brown at distal ends of veins. Abdomen: dark brown dorsally, white ventrally. Male genitalia (Figs. 8 – 9): ring-shaped sclerites of 9+10 segments with posterior end straight; saccus triangular, approximately 0.25x tegumen height; tegumen strongly convex mesad, with uncus forming a barely recognizable extension with shallow medial depression; brachium (falx) bent over, hook-like caudad; valva simple, reniform, with inner margin convex, harpe not recognizable. Phallus robust, aedeagus 0.6x phallobase, nearly straight with caudal end armed with a pair of strongly sclerotized, up-curved, pointed spines (carnae penes). Cornuti comprising an anterior and a posterior heavily sclerotized spine. Juxta U -shaped, slightly thickened ventrad.

Female. Unknown.

Etymology. An adjective of Latin origin, from australis = southern, named so because the new species represents the known southernmost geographical distribution of the genus Shaanxiana .

Diagnosis. The new species is larger than the two previously described taxa, with forewing length exceeding 22 mm, in contrast to 19-21 mm for S. takashimai ( Koiwaya, 1993) and 19 mm for S. pauper ( Sugiyama, 1994) ( Figs. 2-7 ). The submarginal band of the hindwing underside comprises a prominent white band, with two parallel dark brown dashes present in each cell ( Fig. 3 ), whereas it consists of a series of dark brown lunules, with poorly developed white scaling in S. takashimai ( Fig. 5 ) and S. pauper ( Fig. 7 ). The orange component of the submarginal band is narrower than the silvery-white band of “g”-element in S. australis ( Fig. 3 ), whereas it is broader than the white band of “g”-element in S. takashimai ( Fig. 5 ) and S. pauper ( Fig. 7 ). The orange patch on the tornus of the hindwing upperside of S. australis is prominent, reaching cell CuA1 ( Fig. 2 ), whereas it is absent or barely visible, confined to cell CuA2 and 1A+2A when present, in S. takashimai ( Fig. 4 ) and S. pauper ( Fig. 6 ). The uncus of S. takashimai and S. pauper forms a narrow, medial, bifurcate process (Fig. 10; Weidenhoffer & Bozano, 2007: p. 69), which is absent in S. australis (Fig. 8). The valva bears a prominent inner spine (harpe) in S. takashimai (Fig. 10) and S. pauper ( Weidenhoffer & Bozano, 2007: p. 69), whereas this spine is absent in S. australis (Fig. 8). The cornuti of the phallus of S. takashimai are represented by a pair of nearly parallel, sclerotized pieces (Fig. 11; Weidenhoffer & Bozano, 2007: p. 69), whereas those of S. australis comprise two heavily sclerotized spines, one of which is located at the apex and the other distal to it (Fig. 9).

Remarks. The holotype male was collected along with six adults of Ussuriana michaelis , which belongs to a genus closely related to Shaaxiana according to ( Koiwaya (2007), at the same site and at the same time (material vouchered in National Taiwan Normal University Collection). U. michaelis is known to be a specialist on Fraxinus spp. ( Oleaceae ) during the larval stage ( Igarashi & Fukuda, 1997; Koiwaya, 2007; Robinson et al, 2010). As the larvae of congeneric Shaanxinia takashimai is known to specialize on Fraxinus chinensis ( Koiwaya, 2007) and this plant is known to grow in the vicinity of the type locality of S. australis ( Zhang, 1993) , it is hypothesized that S. australis also utilizes F. chinensis as the larval host plant.

FIGURES 8–11. Male genitalia of Shaanxiana : 8. S. australi s, ventral view, valvae spread, in dorsal view, phallus removed, 9. Phallus of S. australi s, lateral view, 10. S. takashimai , ventral view, valvae spread, in dorsal view, phallus removed, 11. Phallus of S. takashimai , lateral view. tg, tegumen; br(fa), brachium (falx); un, uncus; vla, valve; har, harpe; car.p, carnae penes; crn, cornuti. Scale bar = 1 mm.

Figures

FIGURES 2 – 7. Adults of Shaanxiana: 2, upperside of S. australi s new species, 3, underside of S. australis new species, 4, upperside of S. takashimai (Shaanxi, China), 5, underside of S. takashimai (Shaanxi, China), 6, upperside of S. pauper (Sichuan, China), 7, underside of S. pauper (Sichuan, China). Scale bar = 1 cm.