Jamides cyta (Boisduval, 1832)

Mueller, Chris J., 2016, A stunning new species of Jamides Huebner, 1819 (Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae), with notes on sympatric congeners from the Bismarck Archipelago, Papua New Guinea, ZooKeys 571, pp. 113-131 : 116-119

Taxon classification Animalia Lepidoptera Lycaenidae

Jamides cyta (Boisduval, 1832) Figs 16-30, 47, 48, 55

Catochrysops cyta : Boisduval (1832: 87); TL: New Ireland.

Remarks.

The type (?types) of Jamides cyta (Boisduval, 1832) were taken in New Ireland, during the voyage of the Astrolabe through the Indo-Pacific during the period 1826-1829. The Astrolabe, captained by Dumont d’Urville, visited at least three coastal sites in New Ireland; Port Praslin, Hèvre Cartret (Carteret Bay) and Likiliki in the Bay of Frondeurs (= Slinger’s Bay) ( Domeny de Rienzi 1838). Port Praslin and Carteret Bay are separated by about 15km on the western side of New Ireland near the southern tip, in the Cape Saint George Channel. The location of Slinger’s Bay is given as "on the N. coast of New Ireland. Lon. 151. E. Lat. 3. S. " by Worcester (1817). The type/s of Jamides cyta have not been located. However, the description by Boisduval is clear, as follows:

"Ailes d'un bleu-argenté luisant; les inférieures avec une petite queue; dessous des quatre avec plusieurs raies blanches interrompues; les inférieures ayant en outré une rangée marginale de taches noires, don't les trois voisines du bord abdominal marquées de fauve et de vert doré.

Il a le port et la taille d’Elpis, auquel il resemble beaucoup.

Nouvelle-Irlande."

Translated, this states that the insect (presumably a male), has "Wings a shiny silvery blue; the hindwings with a small tail; underside of the four [wings] with several broken white stripes; the hindwings additionally having a marginal band of black spots, of which the three adjacent [closest] to the abdominal [inner] margin are marked with fawn and golden green. It has the appearance and size of Elpis [ Jamides elpis (Godart,[1824])], which it closely resembles. New Ireland."

The description above is pertinent only to the male of Jamides cyta . The author has surveyed several sites throughout New Ireland, close to the localities visited by the Astrolabe, and found Jamides cyta to be particularly common at all of the lowland sites.

Toxopeus (1930), followed by Riley and Corbet (1938), recognised that cyta was the correct species name to be applied to the species known as Catochrysops amphissa (C. & R. Felder, 1860). Prior to that time, several subspecies of what are now known to represent Jamides cyta were described under amphissa , in particular several taxa from Maluku described by Fruhstorfer (1916). Jamides cyta amphissa is now known to be restricted to northern Maluku ( Rawlins et al. 2014).

Ribbe (1899: 228) proposed the name Lycaena amphissina var. malaguna for specimens collected in New Britain, Duke of York Islands and New Ireland. This taxon was considered by D’Abrera (1977: 355) to be a junior synonym of Jamides cyta cyta and Takanami (1989: 50) designated a male lectotype from New Ireland (Neu-Mecklenburg) and recorded three paralectotypes. Both the lectotype and a female paralectotype are here-in illustrated (Figs 16-21).

Nominate cyta from the Bismarck Archipelago is highly distinct from the New Guinea mainland subspecies amphissina Grose Smith, 1894 (not to be confused with amphissa from Maluku), in that the Bismarck specimens are larger and brighter, with much more pronounced orange on the hindwing underside. Bismarck cyta taxa may be further separated in that females from New Britain possess more extensive and brighter blue on the upperside than those from New Ireland and may warrant subspecific status. The types of Jamides cyta amphissina are illustrated in Figs 25-30 and both sexes of Jamides cyta cyta from the Bismarcks are also figured (Figs 22-24).

Jamides cyta is an easily recognised species, the male bearing a pale blue-white upperside and both sexes bear a row of triangular subterminal black spots on the hindwing underside. Note that the illustration of the male Jamides ' cyta ' (as Jamides ‘cytus’) in Parsons (1998) is in fact that of Jamides pseudosias .