Sympistis glennyi Troubridge, J. T., 2008

Troubridge, J. T., 2008, A generic realignment of the Oncocnemidini sensu Hodges (1983) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae: Oncocnemidinae), with description of a new genus and 50 new species, Zootaxa 1903 (1), pp. 1-95 : 23

The Sympistis glennyi complex

Because S. glennyi (Grote) comb. n. is not closely related to S. cocytus sp. n., or S. acheron sp. n. they do not form a species group. All three species fly together in several localities in western North America and are difficult to separate from one another. Sympistis cocytus and S. acheron have often been misidentified as Sympistis phairi (McDunnough) comb. n. in museum collections. Examination of the holotype of S. phairi shows that S. phairi syn. n. is a synonym of S. glennyi (Fig. L-7). These three species do not form a closely related group but are members of a much larger assemblage of species in which the corpus bursae has been completely lost. Genital examination shows that S. acheron and S. cocytus are much more closely related to one another than they are to S. glennyi . DNA sequence data are congruent with the morphological data, showing that of the 658 COI base pairs examined, there is a 6.00% difference between S. cocytus and S. glennyi , a 1.88% difference between S. cocytus and S. acheron , and a 5.72% difference between S. glennyi and S. acheron . Sympistis glennyi is much more closely related to Sympistis lepipoloides (McDunnough) comb. n. (Fig. B-19).