Robinsonia inexpectata Laguerre, 2021

Laguerre, Michel, 2021, Partial revision of the genus Robinsonia Grote 1866: description of five new species for the Neotropical fauna (Lepidoptera, Erebidae, Arctiinae, Phaegopterina), Zootaxa 4990 (1), pp. 65-80 : 75-76

Description of Robinsonia inexpectata Laguerre , sp. nov.

(BIN = BOLD:ACY8552) Fig. 14 .

Holotype. ♂, PERU, Pasco, Pozuzo, Rio Huancabamba , 10°04’ S / 75°33’ W, August 2013, 770 m, leg. Thöny /Greifenstein. Gen. ML 2511 (white manuscript label). Sample ID BC ZSM Lep 92085—BOLD Process ID GWOTP594- 15 (light green printed label). Will be deposited in ZSM.

Paratypes. 4 ♂ 1 ♀. BOLIVIA, Chapare , Cristal Mayu, 750m, 1 au 10-IX-1988, Gilbert Lecourt leg. All in MNHN .

Holotype male description ( Fig. 14 ). Head and thorax. Antennae long and black, shortly ciliate. Vertex dirty white. Patagia light grey, tegulae dirty white bordered with a thin grey line. Thorax grey interspersed with dirty white hairs.

Legs. Dirty white above and grey below.

Forewing. Wings elongated and narrow, grey with a fluffy apperance. The veins black, a dark line in each intervein space. A white area between cell and termen covering entirely the space between CuA 1 and M 2 merging into grey near termen. Underside identical to upper side except the presence of an oval brownish beige androconial patch below cell at base of wing. The area just outside this patch clearer, almost dirty white.

Hindwing. Almost round with a lobed costa, dirty white with the veins narrowly grey. Some greyish suffusions near termen especially after cell. A light brownish oval androconial patch at the end of cell in the upper part. Underside identical to upper side except the veins which are largely suffused with grey around cell, the androconial patch being almost invisible.

Abdomen. Above dark grey interspersed with long dirty white hairs. The two last segments and anal tuft dirty yellow. Underside the abdomen is entirely whitish.

Forewing length: 19 mm (n = 1).

Male genitalia ( Fig. 15A–E ). Coremata absent. Uncus straight with a tiny pointed extremity. Valvae very short, reaching the base of uncus. They are subquadrate, with a straight extremity from where emerges a strongly sclerotized digitate process with acute tip slightly bent dorsally, fused with the extremity, a large oval translucent sacculus covered with hairs, as long as valvae and twice as long as the digitate process. Juxta rectangular, slightly concave on top. Saccus as a long and narrow triangle with extremity bent dorsally. Aedeagus cylindrical, straight and short with a bevelled extremity. Vesica with a single lobe very slightly scobinated.

Female: Identical to male, slightly larger, with more rounded wings. The most obvious difference is the overall almost black hindwings and the absence of androconial patch.

Forewing length: 20.5 mm (n = 1).

Early stages. Unknown.

Etymology. From the latin inexpectata which means unexpected, because it was really unexpected to find such a large and characteristic species completely overlooked moreover in an area which has been extensively collected in the last years.

Distribution. Up to now known only from Pasco department in Peru and Chapare Province in Bolivia at low altitudes.

This species is very close externally to Robinsonia mera a species common in Costa Rica and in the Chiriqui area in Panama (see Fig. 16 below). The male genitalia are also extremely similar (see Fig. 17 below for R. mera ) but the two localities are largely distant and the corresponding sequences noticeably different (7.06 %). Moreover R. mera , on forewings, always exhibits a marginal line of six white dots which are invariantly absent in the new species. Nevertheless these two species share the presence of androconial patches at the junction forewing upper side/hindwing underside, a feature generally absent within the genus Robinsonia . Moreover the two male genitalia diverge noticeably from the usual conformation found within this genus. Further studies will be necessary to fix this problem but this is out of the scope of this paper.

Figures

FIGURE 14. Holotype of Robinsonia inexpectata Laguerrre sp. nov., dorsal view on the left and ventral view on the right, labels are not to scale. Scale = 10 mm.

FIGURE 15. A–E: male genitalia of Robinsonia inexpectata Laguerre sp. nov., A ventral view, B dorsal view, C lateral view, D valva view from inside, E aedeagus with everted vesica.

FIGURE 16. Specimen male of Robinsonia mera (Schaus, 1910) from Costa Rica, dorsal view on the left and ventral view on the right, labels are not to scale. Scale = 10 mm.

FIGURE 17. A–E: male genitalia of Robinsonia mera (Schaus, 1910) from Costa Rica, A ventral view, B dorsal view, C lateral view, D valva view from inside, E aedeagus with everted vesica.