Author(s): Bálint, Zs.
Title: Notes on certain high Andean orange eumaine lycaenids with description of a new species from Peru (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae: Eumaeini)
Year: 2004
Publication date: 2004-10-30
Volume: 96
Pages: 261-272.
Abstract: High Andean species having dorsally orange wing colouration of the diverse eumaeine lycaenid lineage Penaincisalia genus-group are evaluated. The genus Thecloxurina comprises butterflies most often having dorsally vivid blue or violet wing surfaces. The status of the dorsally orange species Thecloxurina atymnides (Draudt, 1919) Johnson, 1992, known from Colombia, was hitherto considered to be uncertain. On the basis of type material, the position and placement of the nominal taxon Thecla atymnides is evaluated. The species represents the high altitude sibling of Thecloxurina loxurina (Felder et Felder, 1865) Johnson, 1992. Two butterfly specimens collected in Peru and superficially similar to Thecla atymnides have been found in the König Collection, Naturhistorisches Museum, Wien. The same phenotype is represented by five individual specimens in the Lepidoptera collection of the Museo de Historia Natural (Universidad Mayor de San Marcos, Lima Peru). These specimens proved to be the representatives of a species new to science, which is described here as Penaincisalia felizitas sp. n. (type locality: Peru, Apurímac, SE de Huancarama, 3700 m) and is considered to be a basal taxon of the Penaincisalia lineage of eumaeine lycaenids. This dorsally orange-violet species represents the phenomenon of discoloration, which stems from a qualitative nanostructural change in the scale bodies of the dorsal wing surface, resulting in the loss of vivid structural colours and affording a positive thermoregulatory effect. Accordingly, the loss of ancestral vivid Penanincisalia or Thecloxurina dorsal colouration is considered to be a derivative loss occurring convergently in the genus-group. This derivation of discoloration appears to have made it possible for cloud-forest lineages of the genus-group to pioneer high altitude habitats in the Andes. With 14 figures.Keywords: new species, Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae, Andes, Taxonomy, genera, androconia, discoloration, Penaincisalia
Subject: entomology
Journal: Annales historico-naturales Musei nationalis hungariciJournal abbreviation: Annls hist.-nat. Mus. nat. hung.ISSN: 0521-4726Publisher: Hungarian Natural History Museum, BudapestEditor(s): Matskási, I. & Merkl, O.