Oeneis urda maranus, Churkin & Yakovlev, 2024

Churkin, Sergei V. & Yakovlev, Roman V., 2024, New subspecies of Oeneis urda Eversmann, 1847 (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae, Satyrinae) from Irkutsk region, Russia, Ecologica Montenegrina 72, pp. 64-70 : 67-70

2. Oeneis urda maranus ssp. nova.

https://zoobank.org/ urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:C16EDFD8-7452-4206-9375-572120DDA30E

Figs 1−6

Holotype: male, Russia, Irkutsk reg., Nizhneudinsk distr., Mara station, Uda R., 7− 14.06.2006, Vaschenko S. leg.

Paratypes: 6 males, 7 females, same data, Vaschenko S. leg. ; 1 male, 4 females, same loc., Kurjaty loc., 14.06.2006, Vaschenko S. leg.; 4 males, same loc., Kurjaty loc., 9. 06.2011, A. Kryukov leg.

Description

Holotype FW length 25 mm, male paratypes 24−25 mm, female paratypes 25—27 mm.

Antennae, palpi, body and fringe coloration and hairs seem to have no taxonomically valuable characters.

Male

FW saturated ocher-yellow on upperside, veins and wide marginal stripe dark-brown, as well as cellclosing vein, wide stripe along М3 and noticeable stripe along Cu1. Wing base and cell slightly darkened. Tiny dark-brown ocelli between veins M1–M2 and Cu1–Cu2, blind, as a rule, only in one male with hardly noticeable white pupil ( Figs 1−2, 4−5 ). One male very dark, representing the melanistic form, characteristic for this species.

HW of the same color as FW, basal and central parts darkened, but cell with noticeable (often contrasting) lightening. Submarginal band contrasting, almost always without ocelli, or 1−2 small dots developed in anal-cubital area. In males, area along vein M3 with developed dark-brown sputtering, as a narrow band connecting the cell edge with marginal band.

Underside of FW pale, with one small apical ocellus, white pupil noticeable.

Underside of HW with dark broken median band, basal part also dark, clarified parts between them; submarginal band yellowish with speckles, marginal band widely darkened, but noticeably lighter than median band.

Male genitalia: no important taxonomic differences found.

Female

Wings noticeably more extended, general coloring similar to that of male, but tone lighter, strawyellowish. On FW always two ocelli, always tiny, white pupils noticeable. On HW basal-median darkening expressed more poorly, veins almost without darkening, number of ocelli varies from 0 to 5, but even in the latest case, all ocelli tiny, as dark dots.

On underside of HW light spots bigger, occupying all cell. White or light form unknown.

Diagnosis

The new subspecies is close to ssp. laeta and similar to the specimens from Tunkinsky Goltsy, though differs from them in the sharp reduction of the ocelli, especially in males. In the other populations (belonging to laeta , as well as to the complex of urda-umbra) the males have tiny ocelli or are dramatically darkened completely, or or represent aberrations with a general reduction of dark pigment throughout all the coloring. In ssp. maranus the dark pattern is not only developed but also slightly magnified – thus, we cannot talk about temperature form and other variants of simple phenotypic variability. The submarginal band on the HW is divided into two parts with the darkening along vein M3, this trait is usually absent in other populations.

It is easily distinguished from the eastern subspecies in the reduction of the ocelli, the contrasting upperside and in the same characters as from ssp. laeta .

The females are generally quite similar to the yellow females of any subspecies, especially to Sayan or Tuvinian, They differ from the usual forms by the strong reduction of the ocelli (the similarity is critical only with the rare color variants of females from Tuva and the Darkhat Basin with a strong reduction of the ocelli).

The overall variability of the population is low, which looks atypical for the species as a whole.

Distribution. Known only from the type locality, which is a part of river basin of the Chuna, which finally flows into Yenisei river. The Nizhneudinsk area, however, does not present the Yenisei basin zoogeographically: it relates with Baikal and sometimes Dauria (for example, it is populated by Polyommatus erotides erotides Staudinger, 1892 ), while Krasnoyarsk fauna is more connected with Tuva and Altay entities.

It is necessary to note that Nizhneudinsk is located at the margin of Angarsky Ridge (so called Angarsky Krjazh), a giant stony system stretched more than 250 km to north-east. We can not exclude that this stony ridge has their own zoogeographical sense and local level of endemism.

We have two females collected near Romanovka village ( Bauntovsky District , the Republic of Buryatia) at the Vitim River Valley by V. Zherikhin and A. Rasnitzyn in 1969 (Yakutia, 59°25ʹ N, 112°32ʹ E) (ex coll. Kirill Kolesnichenko, Moscow). One of them is similar to the new subspecies, another is darkened, both with small whitish dots in the ocelli. It is at least 1200 km north from all known localities in Irkutsk or Chita regions. It means that the areal of the new taxon might be extended far away north from the type locality .

Etymology. Toponimic name. Mara is the name of railway station nearby Nizhneudinsk.

Discussion

Four subspecies live on the territory of Russia (for more details, see above):

– ssp. urda , from Baikal (including northern) to Amur, with a predominance of the white females and the clear pattern;

– ssp. umbra, Primorye and Amur region, close to the previous one, but with a dirty (smoky) color;

– ssp. laeta, Altai-Sayans and the adjacent part of the Yenisei basin, with a predominance of the saturated yellow-ocher females and dark males;

– ssp. maranus , the north-west of the Irkutsk region and, possibly, the adjacent areas of Yakutia, close to the previous one, differing in the reduced ocelli without white nuclei on the upperside with an overall sharp development of the black pattern.

It is necessary to study specimens from the eastern oceanic slopes of Sikhote-Alin and the Khasan region of Primorye.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Vasiliy Tuzov and Kirill Kolesnichenko (Moscow) for the advices during the work. We are grateful to Anna Ustjuzhanina (Tomsk) for language improvements.

References

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Figures

Figures 1−6. Oeneis urda maranus ssp. nova., adult specimens: 1. Holotype, upperside, male, Russia, Irkutsk reg., Nizhneudinsk distr., Mara station, Uda R., 7−14.06.2006, Vaschenko S. leg.; 2. Paratype, upperside, male, same data; 3. Paratype, upperside, female, same data; 4. Holotype, underside; 5. Paratype, underside, male; 6. Paratype, underside, female, same data.