A REVISION OF THE LASIONYCTA SKRAELINGIA (HERRICH-SCHÄFFER) SPECIES COMPLEX (LEPIDOPTERA: NOCTUIDAE)

Abstract

The Lasionycta skraelingia (H.-S.) species complex, formerly considered to include only one species, is shown to consist of six species. Three species (Lasionycta buraetica Kononenko, from the Sayan Mountains, USSR; L. corax Kononenko from the Upper Kolyma River area, USSR; and L. taigata Lafontaine from northern Canada) are described as new. The name L. alpicola, proposed by Hampson as an aberration of L. skraelingia, is validated as a species. The taxon Lasionycta phaea (Hampson), currently treated as a subspecies of L. impingens (Walker), is shown to be a distinct species in the L. skraelingia complex; a lectotype is designated for Anarta phaea Hampson. Adults and genitalia are illustrated for the six species; a key to species and distribution maps are also included. Lasionycta membrosa (Morrison, 1875) is placed in synonymy with L. subdita (Möschler, 1860).

Annotated check list of the Noctuoidea (Insecta, Lepidoptera) of North America north of Mexico

“…Lasionycta skraelingia -Recorded in North America in Yukon by Lafontaine and Kononenko (1988b). Th e genus Lasionycta Aurivillius was revised by Crabo and Lafontaine (2009).…”

A Revision of Lasionycta Aurivillius (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) for North America and notes on Eurasian species, with descriptions of 17 new species, 6 new subspecies, a new genus, and two new species of Tricholita Grote

“…All barcode sequences used for this study comprised of 600 or more base pairs and shorter sequences in taxa for which no higher quality data exist are available publicly on GenBank at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Genbank/). Th e DNA specimen data is presented with BOLD and GenBank accession numbers in Appendix 1. species, L. buraetica Kononenko and L. corax Kononenko, are related to Nearctic L. phaea, as is L. alpicola Lafontaine & Kononenko (Lafontaine and Kononenko 1988) which was omitted from this list. Four other species, proxima, calberlai (Staudinger), imbecilla (Fabricius), and impar (Staudinger), occur in Europe and were described and illustrated by Hacker et al (2002).…”

“…Its surface is grooved producing a weak spiral of approximately 1.5 turns. Th e male antenna is beadlike (L. phaea) to biserrate (1.5× as wide as shaft in two Asian species (Lafontaine and Kononenko 1988)). Lasionycta phaea is the only North American member of the species-group.…”

“…Both L. phaea and L. secedens have a narrower beadlike antenna than those of the L. skraelingia species-group. Lafontaine and Kononenko (1988) revised the L. skraelingia species-group. Only two species included by them are retained in the species-group in the present work, with the remainder forming the L. phaea species-group.…”

“…Lafontaine and coworkers revised the Lasionycta leucocycla and L. skraelingia complexes in the 1980's (Lafontaine et al 1986;Lafontaine and Kononenko 1988) following a surge of interest in the fauna of northwestern North America and northern Eurasia. Th ey showed that several species occur on both continents and reduced the number of species in the L. leucocycla complex by reducing a number of taxa previously regarded as species to the rank of subspecies.…”