Argyrophorus Blanchard, 1852

Matz, Jess & Brower, Andrew V. Z., 2016, The South Temperate Pronophilina (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae: Satyrinae): a phylogenetic hypothesis, redescriptions and revisionary notes, Zootaxa 4125 (1), pp. 1-108 : 17

Argyrophorus Blanchard, 1852

Type species: Argyrophorus argenteus Blanchard, 1852

Diagnosis. The monobasic Argyrophorus as defined here is distinguished from Punargentus most notably by a singly pupillated M1-M3 VFW ocellus, valvae that are are rounder and wider at the distal end than those in Punargentus , a narrower saccus, and aedeagus with medial wings.

Remarks. Pyrcz & Wojtusiak (2010) redefined Argyrophorus using head morphology, wing patterning, venation, wing shape, and male genitalic characters, apparently to be inclusive of Etcheverrius , Palmaris , Pampasatyrus and Punargentus (although they neglected to provide a list of which species are included in their circumscription of the genus, and were not clear as to whether Pamperis poaoeneis is or is not included). This situation was clarified somewhat by Cerdeña et al. (2014), who reported that Pyrcz (2010) synonymized “nine” genera under Argyrophorus (they listed seven: Etcheverrius , Neomaniola , Palmaris , Pampasatyrus , Pamperis , Punargentus and Stuardosatyrus ). Subsequently, Pyrcz (2012) moved Neomaniola euripides from Argyrophorus to Faunula . Cerdeña et al. (2014) also noted that Pampasatyrus is closely-related to, but distinct from Argyrophorus . They reported the latter to contain 11 species—presumably the species previously included by Lamas & Viloria (2004) in Argyrophorus (1 + 1 subsequently described by Pyrcz & Wojtusiak, 2010), Etcheverrius (2), Palmaris (4), Pamperis (1) and Punargentus (2). According to our cladogram ( Fig. 1 ), that circumscription is polyphyletic: Argyrophorus and Pamperis are phylogenetically distinct from Punargentus (here circumscribed more broadly to include Etcheverrius and Palmaris ) and its sister genus, Pampasatyrus . Pyrcz & Wojtusiak (2010) placed their new species blanchardi in Argyrophorus using their broader definition, but the similarities in the VFW M1-M3 ocelli, and the lack of medial appendages on the aedeagus suggest that it belongs in Punargentus , instead.

Figures

FIGURE 1. One of six equally parsimonious trees for Neosatyriti and selected pronophiline outgroups, based on 4071 bp of concatenated DNA sequence from mtDNA COI-COII, elongation factor 1 - alpha and wingless. Length = 8955 steps, CIx = 0.2435; RI = 0.4729.