Pedaliodes philinae Pyrcz & Prieto

Pyrcz, Tomasz W., Prieto, Carlos, Viloria, Angel L. & Andrade, Gonzalo, 2013, New species of high elevation cloud forest butterflies of the genus Pedaliodes Butler from the northern Colombian Andes (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae, Satyrinae), Zootaxa 3716 (4), pp. 528-538 : 536-537

Pedaliodes philinae Pyrcz & Prieto , n. sp.

( Figs. 7, 8 , 11 , 14 )

Material examined. HOLOTYPE (male): Colombia, Antioquia, Urrao, Páramo de Frontino, 6o24’23’’N, 76o06’18’’W, 3100 m, 0 8.2012, C. Prieto leg., MZUJ (to be deposited in MHN-UN); PARATYPES (8 males and 2 females): 5 males: Antioquia, Urrao, Páramo de Frontino, 3100 m, 07.I.2012, i803, C. Prieto leg., CPC; 1 male: Antioquia, Urrao, Páramo de Frontino, 27.12.1981, G. Rodriguez leg., GRM; 2 males and 1 female: same data as the holotype, MZUJ; 1 female: Antioquia, Urrao, Vda. El Chuscal, El 15 Helecho, 3090 m, 26.08.2010, P. Triviño C. leg., PTC163, ICN047178, ICN-UN.

Diagnosis. The only other species of Pedaliodes in the Andes of Colombia with a wide HWD orange patch extending in the postdiscal-marginal area from the anal margin to M3 is Pedaliodes plotina (Hewitson) , which occurs only in the Eastern Cordillera and differs in being smaller, with a blunt FW apex, and in having no pale yellow or whitish dots on the orange patch. The ventral color pattern of P. philinae is nearly identical to that of P. polla Thieme , a species that occurs in the Eastern Cordillera of Colombia and the Venezuelan Cordillera de Mérida and has an all brown dorsal surface.

Description. Male ( Fig. 7 ). Head: Antennae slender, reaching nearly half length of the costa, naked, orange brown, slightly darker brown dorsally, club formed gradually, slightly thicker than shaft, composed of 11 flagellomeres. Eyes chocolate brown, lustrous, covered with dense, black hair. Labial palpi two times as long as the head, covered with dark brown, black and sandy yellow hairy scales, ventrally long, laterally and dorsally short. Frons with a tuft of rather short, black and golden yellow hair. Thorax: Dorsally black, patagium, tegulae and prothorax covered with long, brown and golden yellow hairy scales, otherwise mostly naked; ventrally black; legs brown, femora and tibiae covered with sandy yellow scales, tarsi with numerous blackish, short spines. FW (length: 29.5 mm, n=2) with apex acute, outer margin slightly concave, truncated below apex, giving the impression of being undulated due to the intermittently dark brown fringes at vein ends and shorter, chestnut in the interveins. HW oval with an undulated outer margin, and dark brown fringes. FWD uniform glossy, dark brown. HWD glossy dark brown, except for a dark orange patch extending from vein M3 to anal margin, some 5 mm wide, with diffused basal edges, enclosing two submarginal lighter orange dots M3–Cu1 and Cu1–Cu2. FWV dull brown, a shade lighter than on the upperside, with a diffused, barely noticeable postdiscal band extending from costa to vein M3 made up of sparse sandy yellow scales; outer margin chocolate brown from apex to M3–Cu1. HWV ground color chocolate brown with a fine ripple pattern made of light orange and dark brown scales over the entire surface of the wing; postdiscal to submarginal area dustd with pale orage scales, denser from vein M3 to anal margin, and on mid-costa, enclosing a series of 5 rounded, pale orange dots, faint and barely noticeable, except two prominent dots in M3–Cu1 and Cu1–Cu2, as on the upperisde. Abdomen: Black, dorsally and laterally covered with black, ventrally with dense, sandy yellow and chestnut scales. Male genitalia ( Fig. 11 ) with dorsum of tegumen flat, uncus stout, nearly straight, approximately ¾ the length of tegumen dorsum, subunci prominent, approximately 1/2 the length of uncus, pedunculus small, valvae roughly the length of tegumen+uncus, with one short and blunt dorsal process and and elongated pointed distal extremity; saccus wide and short, aedeagus as long as saccus+valve, slender, strongly flattened dorso ventrally, with a blunt apical extremity, proximal opening 2/5 the length of the entire aedeagus, as wide as the remaining part of it.

Female ( Fig. 8 ). Head and Thorax: Sexual dimorphism slight; paler brown on FWD and FWV, considerably paler, almost sandy yellow on the HWV; submarginal dots white, not yellow, FW length 29 mm. Abdomen: Female genitalia ( Fig. 14 ) with papillae anales medium sized. Antrum enclosed by a wide basin strengthened internally by a strongly sclerotized slat-like lamella antevaginalis. Bursa copulatrix oval. Signa approximately half length of corpus burse, parallel and wide, with a spiny surface. Ductus bursae very wide and slightly sclerotized. Ductus seminalis connecting to ductus bursae near its proximal opening. Female genitalia very similar in most respects to Pedaliodes haydoni , n. sp., except for the larger corpus bursae, and denser and longer hair on papillae anales.

Etymology. This species is dedicated to Peter Deivel, a former German Lufthansa jet plane pilot, and named for his beloved daughter Philine Pahnke for her 18th birthday because of her fondness of wild nature.

Comments. This species is known only from the Páramo de Frontino massif where it occurs in the uppermost forest near timberline; it is the most abundant species of Pedaliodes at the type locality.

Discussion. In a faunal monograph of the Colombian Western Cordillera, Pyrcz & Rodríguez (2007) speculated that the number of species belonging to Pronophilina in this range is still underestimated. They pointed out that in particular the isolated Páramo de Frontino in its northern part is an undersampled and biotically diverse area. This prediction has been confirmed in this paper. Adding the new species of Pedaliodes and Apexacuta orsedice (Hewitson) detected recently in Frontino by K. Garwood (pers. comm.), the total number of Pronophilina in the Western Cordillera increases to 88 species, compared to 53 listed by Adams (1986), and 83 listed by Pyrcz & Rodríguez (2007). Similarly, the ratio of endemic species in the subtribe Pronophilina in the Western Cordillera is higher than previously reported—26% overall and 46% in the genus Pedaliodes . Most of the endemic species of Pedaliodes (and Neopedaliodes L. Miller, J. Miller & Viloria ) are reported from high elevations in the isolated massifs in the central (Farallones de Cali) or northern part of the range (Tatamá, Farallones de Citará, Páramo Frontino ), but some are restricted to lower elevations on the western slopes of the range ( P. pacifica Krüger, P. caeca Pyrcz & Viloria). With the description of four new taxa, the total number of species of Pedaliodes sensu lato in Colombia increases to 104 (another 5 undescribed species have been identified (Pyrcz, in prep.)). Colombia’s species richness of the subtribe Pronophilina is now 208 species, second only to Peru (approximately 300 species). The new species described herein show close affinities with widespread polytypic species or groups of closely related species. In particular, the HWV color pattern and male genitalia of P. philinae show far-reaching similarities to a group of widespread species which includes P. polla from Colombia and Venezuela, and P. asconia Thieme occurring throughout the eastern slopes of the Andes in Ecuador. The same morphological characters indicate that P. adrianae is apparently closely related to a number of orange-banded species from the Colombian Eastern Cordillera, such as P. phaea , P. fuscata , P. bernardi , and the newly described P. haydoni . It is interesting that the closest allies of both new Pedaliodes from the northern extremity of Western Cordillera occur in the Colombian Eastern Cordillera, not in the geographically closest Central Cordillera.

Figures

FIGURES 1 – 8. Pedaliodes adults. 1, P. haydoni male (holotype); 2, P. porcia male; 3, P. adrianae male (holotype); 4, P. adrianae female (paratype); 5, P. rodriguezi male (holotype); 6, P. ro dr i gu e z i female (paratype); 7, P. philinae male (holotype); 8, P. philinae female (paratype).

FIGURES 9 – 12. Male genitalia. Pedaliodes haydoni (paratype): 9 A, genitalia in lateral view; 9 B, aedeagus in lateral view; 9 C, aedeagus in dorsal view; Pedaliodes adrianae (paratype): 10 A, genitalia in lateral view; 10 B, aedeagus in lateral view; 10 C, aedeagus in dorsal view; Pedaliodes philinae (paratype): 11 A, genitalia in lateral view; 11 B, aedeagus in lateral view; 11 C, aedeagus in dorsal view; Pedaliodes rodriguezi (paratype): 12 A, genitalia in lateral view; 12 B, aedeagus in lateral view; 12 C, aedeagus in dorsal view.

FIGURES 13 – 15. 13, Pedaliodes adrianae (paratype) female genitalia; 14, Pedaliodes philinae (paratype) female genitalia; 15, Pedaliodes rodriguezi male (Cerro San Felix, Antioquia, Colombia, 2900 m)