Notes and synonymy on the Neotropical moth genus Xylodonta Becker (Notodontidae, Nystaleinae), with special reference to the species occurring in Brazil

Abstract

The species belonging to Xylodonta Becker, 2014 were treated by Draudt (1932: 931-935) in Dasylophia Packard, 1864, a polyphyletic group that included species currently associated with at least three genera: true Dasylophia, Nycterotis Felder, and Xylodonta Becker (Becker, 2014). Draudt's work included, for the first time, colour illustrations of most of them (pl. 146b-d). However, as characters of genitalia were not in full usage at that time, he incurred in several mistakes, maintaining all the synonymies established by previous authors, and recognizing all the others as good species. Part of these problems were clarified in a checklist by Becker (2014: 19-20) who, based on the characters of male genitalia, reduced Dasylophia to three species, transferring nine of them, not that could be associated with any of the described genera, to the new genus Xylodonta. The species belonging to this genus are not easy to identify as most of them show similar pattern and also present strong sexual dimorphism, making association of sexes difficult. The most difficult of them is the complex of species that have been generally identified in the collections as xylinata Walker. Chacón et al. ( 2017) carried out a detailed study of this complex for the species ocurring in Costa Rica and found that they represent at least eight species, six of them undescribed, bringing the number to 14 species for the genus. Chacon, in the article for which he was the author responsable for the taxonomy part of the work, adopted the synonymy followed by previous authors, what led him to misinterpret the identity of two species: xylinata, and pythia Druce. These two species were regarded as synonyms, a mistake that is discussed below. This work treats the species of the genus ocurring in Brazil, represented by eight species, four of them described as new, brings new information on the classification of the species belonging to the genus and provides illustrations, both of adults and their male genitalia, to allow the identification of the Brazilian species. In order to clarify the identity of the species, other taxa, not ocurring in Brazil, had to be examined and some useful information about them is also included here. To summarise: with this work, plus that of Chacón et al. (2017), which in reality treats all the Central American and Mexican species, and the catalogue by Schintlmeister (2016), which illustrates all the types of Notodontidae deposited in the collections of the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, information about all the species of Xylinota is currently available, allowing their identification. Material and methodsThis review is based on 241 specimens (99 g. s.) in VOB 1 , and on the type-material in the USNM and the NHMUK. Synoptic collections representing all the species in VOB were taken to the last two institutions