Lirra, Zhang, Jing, Cong, Qian, Shen, Jinhui, Song, Leina & Grishin, Nick V., 2023

Zhang, Jing, Cong, Qian, Shen, Jinhui, Song, Leina & Grishin, Nick V., 2023, Genomics-based taxonomic rearrangement of Achlyodini and Carcharodini (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae: Pyrginae), Insecta Mundi 2023 (16), pp. 1-33 : 7

Lirra Grishin, new genus

http://zoobank.org/ C0278D7F-5AF8-4C68-8306-35A67EA4AC52

Type species. Leucochitonea limaea Hewitson, 1868 .

Definition. Currently in Pythonides Hübner, 1819 (type species Papilio jovianus Stoll, 1782 ), two closely related sister species Ate pteras Godman and Salvin, 1895 (type locality Panama: Chiriqui) and Leucochitonea limaea Hewitson, 1868 (type locality in French Guiana) are genetically distant from it and statistical support for their monophyly with species included here in Pythonides is not strong in the genomic tree (54%) ( Fig. 1 ). The clade formed by these two species corresponds to a genus-level taxonomic category based on its position in the phylogeny and comparison to established genera-level clades. Therefore, we propose that this clade corresponds to a new genus that keys to E. 41.11 in Evans (1953) and is distinguished from its relatives by the following characters: hind tibiae with one upper spur and with a tuft in males, forewing without hyaline spots, dorsal hindwing broadly blue at the margin, ventral hindwing without black overscaling of veins; uncus undivided, semi-triangular, gradually narrowing towards its end, aedeagus straight, not downturned or upturned, harpe approximately the same length as valva, narrowing distad, upturned and ending in a broad tooth pointing dorsad, costa slightly convex, ampulla with long process over harpe reaching its half. In DNA, a combination of the following nuclear genomic base pairs is diagnostic: aly531.8.1:T654C, aly536.138.5:A1345C, aly1603.75.1:C49G, aly74.2.4:A627G, aly1656.25.1:A333G.

Etymology. The name is a feminine noun in the nominative singular formed as a modified fusion of species names: Li [maea]+[pte]{r} ra [s].

Species included. Ate pteras Godman and Salvin, 1895 and Leucochitonea limaea Hewitson, 1868 .

Parent taxon. Subtribe Pythonidina Grishin, 2019.

Figures

Figure 1. The nuclear genome-based phylogeny of Achlyodini (continued in Fig. 3). Only the segment of the tree corresponding to the subtribe Pythonidina is shown. The bottom segment of the tree (subtribe Achlyodinia) is replaced with four dots and is shown in Fig. 3. The tree is constructed from protein-coding regions in autosomes. The tree is rooted with Carcharodus alceae (NVG-18087F02, GenBank barcode OR665734), not displayed. Statistical support values are shown by nodes. For each specimen, its name adopted in this work is given first, and a previously used name is listed in square brackets (if different), supplemented with the DNA sample number, type status (HT holotype, LT lectotype, ST syntype, T type, PT paratype, and PLT paralectotype), general locality and collection year (“old” means collection year known, but likely before 1950, mostly around the turn of 20th century). See Table S1 in the Supplemental file (Zhang et al. 2023d) for additional data about these specimens. Synonyms are given in parentheses preceded by “=”. The type status refers to this synonym if the synonym name is provided. Names of genera (larger font, more prominent tree branches, on the left) and subgenera (smaller font, less prominent tree branches, on the right) are shown by the clades corresponding to these taxa. New genus-group names are highlighted in yellow. Branches leading to the type species (or their closest sequenced relatives) of valid genus-group names are marked with large black dots and refer to the subgenus (in parenthesis) given in the corresponding name, or the genus if the subgenus is not specified. The same notations are used in Fig. 3–6. Names of taxa that before this work were placed in genera Pythonides (red), Gindanes (cyan), Quadrus (green), Ouleus (blue), and Zera (purple) are shown in color to illustrate rampant violations of monophyly in these taxa, corrected here.