Docleomorpha violae Huang & Horie, 2025

Huang, Si-Yao, Horie, Kiyoshi & Espeland, Marianne, 2025, A review of the genus Docleomorpha Hering (Lepidoptera, Zygaenidae, Chalcosiinae) with descriptions of four new species, Zootaxa 5689 (1), pp. 155-164 : 161

Docleomorpha violae Huang & Horie sp. nov.

Figs 11 & 18

Material examined. Holotype. male, “ Borneo Mt. Kinabalu | Kalanggaan, 1400 m | 9.-13.VIII.2005, LF | leg. W. Mey & K. Ebert. ” / “MfNHSY011” / “ ZFMK | LepDNA0000479” ( MfN).

Diagnosis. Docleomorpha violae sp. nov. can be distinguished from its congeners superficially by the narrower forewing, the gradually narrowed yellow band on forewing and the well-developed medial stripe on hindwing. In male genitalia, D. violae sp. nov. can be distinguished from all the congeners by the smaller valvula, the ill-developed juxta, the absence of lamella centralis and the smooth, beak-like distal process of sacculus.

Description. External morphology of adult. Length of forewing 13 mm in male. Antennae black, bipectinate. Head, thorax and abdomen black dorsally and yellow ventrally. Abdomen with yellow rings between segments. Forewing ground color black with a rodlike yellow stripe extending from costa to vein CuP, gradually narrowed from costa to the distal end. Hindwing ground color black, the yellow patterns consisted of a reduced pale yellow stripe stretching along the costal area, and a yellow, long dew-shaped stripe extending and broadening from wing base to submarginal zone medially. Male genitalia. Uncus rectangular with its distal margin concave medially, bearing setae along lateral and distal edges. Scaphium membranous. Tegumen trapezoid, about twice the width of the uncus. Posterior bilateral projection rodlike, with the tip of each lobe bent upwards and hooked and the bases of the projections connected medially by a short band-like sclerite. Vinculum moderately broad, nearly the same width of the tegumenal lobe. Juxta horseshoe-like and ill-developed, mostly fused with the inner margin of vinculum. Saccus broad U-shaped. Valva broad (ca. 2 × uncus length) and short (ca. 1.3 × uncus length), costa stripe-like, simple; valvula membranous and fan-shaped, with setae sparsely scattered; sacculus moderately broad (about 0.65 × uncus width) and short (ca. 1.4 × uncus length), with its distal one third formed a beak-like process. Phallus cylindrical, elongated and narrowed medially, with coecum well-developed.

Female unknown.

Distribution. Malaysia (Borneo).

Etymology. The specific epithet violae is named after Ms Viola Richter (MfN, Berlin, Germany), who helped the first author greatly during his visits to the collections of MfN. It is a noun in the genitive case.

Remarks. The juxta and sacculus of D. violae sp. nov. are very different from typical Docleomorpha , e.g. D. boholica species-group, as already described above, and its final placement requires the confirmation from molecular approaches.

Figures

FIGURES 1–12. Adults of Docleomorpha spp. Depository of the specimens: 2 in SMF, 3, 5–9 in CKH; 4 in NHMUK (©The Trustees of NHMUK); 10 & 11 in MfN, 12 in CHSY. Scale bar for figures 2–12.

FIGURES 16–20. Male (16–19) and female (20) genitalia of Docleomorpha spp. Depository of the specimens: 16, 17 & 20 in CKH; 18 in MfN; 19 in CHSY.