A new satyrine butterfly species, Splendeuptychia tupinamba Freitas, Huertas & Rosa, sp. nov. (Nymphalidae: Satyrinae), is described. This species is found throughout a large geographical range in Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, predominantly in the Cerrado domain, with some records in neighboring Amazonia and Atlantic Forest. Morphology and molecular data indicate that this species is part of a clade that includes Splendeuptychia ashna (the type species of the genus Splendeuptychia), and several species placed in the recently described genus Nubila Viloria, Andrade & Henao, 2019.
The genus Eois Hübner (Geometridae: Larentiinae) comprises 254 valid species. Being a hyperdiverse genus, Eois potentially includes many undescribed cryptic species and embodies a problematic taxonomic scenario. The actual diversity of Eois is greatly underestimated and the Neotropical fauna needs to be well known since it figures as one of the most threatened terrestrial ecosystem. In the present study, we compare three species delimitation methods to highlight the hidden diversity within a subset of Eois species: Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery, Bayesian Poisson Tree Processes and Multi‐Rate Poisson Tree Processes. Our results point to an increase up to 176% in the currently valid species number. The hypothesis of cryptic diversity is corroborated by morphological characters within some species complexes. For complexes comprising species of Brazilian fauna, we provide a preliminary taxonomic assessment. Additionally, we found no congruence among the three delimitation methods for some species complexes, which indicates the importance of species and locality sampling as well as the previous alpha taxonomic knowledge in avoiding result bias. In this sense, we tried to standardize the identification provided for the Genbank sequences used in most relevant publications for Eois, in order to minimize biases and maximize the replicability of analyses in future studies. Moreover, we stress the importance of an integrative taxonomic approach for cryptic species discovery approach by employing both morphological attributes and life history to corroborate molecular analysis.
Memphis Hübner (1819) is the most species‐rich genus among the Neotropical Charaxinae, occurring from southern United States to Argentina. Memphis acidalia (Hübner, 1819; Anaeini), a common and widespread species distributed in all of South America east of the Andes, is part of a complex of superficially similar, and supposedly related, species with high intraspecific variability. Immature stages are fundamental sources of information for Anaeini taxonomy; however, knowledge on immature stages of Memphis is incomplete. Thus, we describe the immature external morphology, biology and behaviour, plus the chaetotaxy of the first instar of M. acidalia victoria (H. Druce, 1877) and provide distinguishing characteristics of its life stages from those of similar sympatric species, namely. Memphis moruus (Fabricius, 1775), Memphis editha (Comstock, 1961), Memphis philumena (Doubleday, 1849) and Memphis oenomais (Boisduval, 1870). In general, the immature stages are similar to other “moruus‐type'' species of Memphis, differing from other species mostly on the co lour patterns of the fifth instar and pupa.
A new monotypic genus in the ‘Archeuptychia clade’ Xikrin Barbosa, Freitas, Siewert & Marín gen. nov. (Nymphalidae: Satyrinae: Euptychiina) is described to accommodate a new species, Xikrin ueharapradoi Freitas & Barbosa gen. et sp. nov., in the highly diverse Satyrinae subtribe Euptychiina, based mainly on molecular data. To date, this species is known only from the region of Carajás, in the eastern Amazon rainforest. The phylogenetic relationship and taxonomy of this new taxon are discussed.
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