Platyja cyanocraspis, Hampson, 1922

Zilli, Alberto & Vos, Rob de, 2021, The sumatrana species group of the genus Platyja with descriptions of four new species (Lepidoptera: Erebidae), Fragmenta entomologica 53 (2), pp. 391-410 : 408-409

cyanocraspis sub-group

Platyja lecerfi A.E. Prout, 1922 stat. n. ( Moluccas: Buru and Seram)

Platyja togutila sp. n. ( Moluccas: Halmahera)

Platyja vityaz sp. n. ( Bismarck Archipelago: Rook Island [= Umboi, Siassi])

Platyja sp. ( vityaz sp. n. or close) ( Bismarck Archipelago: New Britain)

Platyja cyanocraspis Hampson, 1922 (New Guinea) Platyja subtracta sp. n. (New Guinea, Waigeo, Jobi [= Yapen], Dampier = Karkar, and Fergusson islands) Platyja yaleyambae sp. n. (Louisiade Archipelago: Sudest Island [= Vanatinai, Tagula] and Rossel Island [= Yela])

The group is a strictly Indo-Australian one, with the sumatrana and cyanocrapis sub-groups that segregate in the west- ern and eastern parts of the range, respectively, but with no representatives known to date between them, greater Sunda islands like Java or the main Wallacean one like Sulawesi seemingly not hosting any species. The discovery that the old concept of cyanocraspis consists of two sibling species in New Guinea, with true cyanocraspis being actually scarc- er than subtracta sp. n., has been a most surprising outcome of this taxonomic assessment. This finding was even sur- passed by realisation that phenotypes resembling in antennal and pattern features subtracta correspond to additional unde- scribed species, a circumstance that further confirms the Papuan Region as a biodiversity hotspot whose ecogeographic complexity promoted speciation in many groups.

Acknowledgements – Gratitude goes to Bernard Landry for communication of a new country record for Thailand from the holdings of the then Jacques Plante collection, now in Muséum d’histoire naturelle (Geneva). This work has been partly supported by an internal NHMUK grant to AZ (DIF 2019: SCR13057).