Page:A new species of Eupithecia Curtis (Lepidoptera, Geometridae) from the Andes of northern Chile.pdf/1

Nota Lepi. 44 2021: 239–247

http://zoobank.org/56CFE7C5-114A-4C05-BD32-6B0D4762E50D

Received 19 August 2021; accepted 30 September 2021; published: 25 October 2021 Subject Editor: Sven Erlacher.

Abstract. Eupithecia copaquillaensis '''sp. nov.''' (Lepidoptera, Geometridae, Larentiinae, Eupitheciini) is described and illustrated. Adults of this new species were discovered using a light trap in the Copaquilla ravine, at about 2800 m elevation on the western slope of the Andes of northern Chile. The morphology of the genitalia of E. copaquillaensis resembles that of E. atacama (Vojnits, 1985), which is also Chilean. However, the shape of the smaller cornutus and the signa in the male and female genitalia respectively enable accurate differentiation of the two species. DNA barcodes are used to associate male and female E. copaquillaensis.

Introduction

The widespread moth genus Eupithecia Curtis, 1825 (Larentiinae, Eupitheciini) is the most speciose of the family Geometridae (Lepidoptera), with more than 1300 species listed in the latest world catalogue (Parsons et al. 1999). Despite this impressive number, new species continue to be discovered in different parts of the world (e.g. Ferris 2007; Mironov and Ratzel 2012; Mironov and Galsworthy 2014; Skou et al. 2017; Seven et al. 2019).

Based on the study of the Palaearctic, Nearctic and Oriental fauna, Mironov and Galsworthy (2012) redefined Eupithecia and indicated a combination of some key features in the male genitalia for distinguishing the genus from the morphologically closely related genera of Eupitheciini: uncus broadest basally and hook-like distally with one or two tips, juxta “hourglass shaped” with a bilobed calcar, anterior arm of labides curved with a setose finger-like papilla at apex, and sternum VIII modified with patches of sclerotization. Furthermore, recent molecular phylogenetic studies that included Old World representatives of Eupithecia suggest that the genus represents a monophyletic group (Õunap et al. 2016; Brehm et al. 2019).

About a fourth of all the known species of Eupithecia are recorded in the Neotropical Region (Herbulot 2001). It has been suggested that the moist environments of the Andes are the most species-rich for this genus in the world (Brehm et al. 2019), based on the high species richness revealed in recent studies performed in the moist forests of the Ecuadorian Andes (Brehm et al. 2016). In contrast, the species richness of Eupithecia appears to be lower in the arid environments of South America (Rindge 1987).