Coladenia maeniata Oberthuer , 1896

Xue, Guo-Xi, Inayoshi, Yutaka, Hu, Hua-Lin, Li, Meng & Ren, Ying-Dang, 2015, A new subspecies and a new synonym of the genus Coladenia (Hesperiidae, Pyrginae) from China, ZooKeys 518, pp. 129-138 : 133-135

Taxon classification Animalia Lepidoptera Hesperiidae

Coladenia maeniata Oberthuer, 1896

Coladenia maeniata Oberthür, 1896: 42, pl. 9, fig. 164 (original description). Type locality: Maenia, Thibet [sic]; Elwes and Edwards 1897: 130 (diagnosis, distribution); Swinhoe 1912-1913: 71 (distribution); Evans 1949: 118 (description, distribution); Huang 2003: 68 (distribution); Fan and Wang 2006: 79, 80 (distribution, diagnosis).

Coladenia neomaeniata Fan & Wang, 2006: 79 (original description). Type locality: Weixi County, Yunnan Province. syn. n.

Notes.

According to Fan and Wang (2006), Coladenia neomaeniata is different from Coladenia maeniata in having the valva of the male genitalia conspicuously narrowed distally, and the inner edge of the spot in space sc+r1 on hindwing not in line with that of the cell spot. The first author of the present paper examined some specimens from northwest Yunnan which have the same wing pattern as Coladenia neomaeniata , and found that the valva of the male genitalia is bowl-like (Figs 24, 25), and its inner side looks different depending on the angle of view (Figs 26-29): from a certain angle to see, its distal part is narrowed as shown by figure 5 in Fan and Wang (2006) (Fig. 27), but from another view angle, it agrees with the figure provided by Evans (1949) (Fig. 26); besides, figure 6 in Fan and Wang (2006) is the dorsal view of the valva, not later view. Thus, the male genitalia of Coladenia neomaeniata is actually identical to that of Coladenia maeniata . Moreover, Coladenia neomaeniata is in the distributional range of Coladenia maeniata ( Evans 1949, Fan and Wang 2006), so their difference in the position of the spot in sc+r1 on hindwing should be considered as intraspecific individual variation rather than subspecific differentiation. Such variation also appears in the shape of the spot in space sc on forewing which changes from a tiny dot to a long strip ( Fan and Wang 2006, Oberthür 1896) (Fig. 30), and also in the spots in spaces m1 and m2 which may be fully developed (Fig. 31), vestigial ( Oberthür 1896) or absent ( Fan and Wang 2006). Therefore, Coladenia neomaeniata is treated as a junior synonym of Coladenia maeniata herein.

Remarks.

Fan and Wang (2006) recorded the distribution of Coladenia maeniata in southeast Xizang. We have not found any information from their work and other literature which shows this species is distributed in southeast Xizang, except that the type locality was recorded as Maenia, E. Tibet ( Elwes and Edwards 1897). But the geographic range of Tibet in old entomological literature is much bigger than that of Xizang (= Tibet Autonomous Region) in nowadays. According to Elwes and Edwards (1897), Maenia is a place near Ta-tsien-lo, viz. Ta-tsien-lu, which is now known as Kangding area in west Sichuan Province, not in the range of Xizang. Then, the distribution of Coladenia maeniata should be clarified as northwest Yunnan and west Sichuan ( Evans 1949).