A review of the genera Amauta Houlbert, 1918 and Divana J. Y. Miller, 1982 (Lepidoptera: Castniidae) with description of a new genus
Author
Worthy, Robert
0000-0003-0879-6472
10 The Hill, Church Hill, Caterham, Surrey CR 3 6 SD, U. K. castnia @ btopenworld. com; https: // orcid. org / 0000 - 0003 - 0879 - 6472 Austin Achieve Public Schools, Austin, Texas, (Research Associate, McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity), USA.
castnia@btopenworld.com
Author
González, Jorge M.
Author
Zilli, Alberto
Natural History Museum, Insects Division, Cromwell Road, London SW 7 5 BD, U. K.
text
Zootaxa
2022
2022-10-06
5194
3
301
342
journal article
160070
10.11646/zootaxa.5194.3.1
6aa6dacd-1e74-46ac-a345-2fc691f92608
1175-5326
7154442
96B016A1-5D9B-4013-9F9D-597A6C2FC277
velutina
(
Houlbert, 1917
)
(
Figs. 9A, B
)
“
Castnia Velutina
,
sp. nov.
”
Houlbert, 1917
,
Études de Lépidoptérologie comparée
13
: 56–57.
Type
material:
Houlbert (1917)
does not state the number of
type
specimens but mentions males, therefore the
type
series must consist of more than
one male
. He does not mention female characters in the description but neither does he exclude them, so it is possible that the
type
series also contained at least
one female
.
In
NHMUK
there are
two males
and
one female
that have printed labels, presumably provided by
Oberthür
, reading: “D’un envoi fait de Guayaquil, par Erich Feyer à Carl Zacher d’Erfurt, saisi en mer sur le vapeur italien “
Sienna
” et vendu à Toulon par le service des prises le
7-10-1915
en exécution du décret du
18-3-1915
.”.
They
also have
syntype
labels, so they are considered to be syntypic (
Figs. 9A, B
)
.
Type
locality:
Houlbert (1917)
states “Cette espèce a été reçu de Guayaquil qui est, comme on le sait, le grand port d’exportation de la République de l’Equateur; mais il est probable qu’elle vient de l’intérieur du pays, c’est-àdire des régions sylvatiques situées à l’est de la chaîne des Andes”. So, as Guayaquil is a large port and unlikely to be the original provenance of the specimens, he surmises that they must come from the interior of the country, that is, wooded regions to the east of the Andes.
As the locality given is clearly not the collecting locality it is not possible to narrow the
type
locality beyond “
Ecuador
”
.
Taxonomic status:
Originally described as a subspecies of
papilionaris
and treated as such by
Miller (1995)
and
Lamas (1995)
, it is here sunk to a full synonym (
syn. nov.
). A junior subjective synonym of
Castnia papilionaris papilionaris
Walker, [1865]
(now in
Amauta
).
Male genitalia
: See
papilionaris
.
Distribution:
Throughout
Ecuador
and northern and central
Peru
, as far south as at least Chanchamayo (
Junín
department) (
Fig. 14
).
Discussion:
Houlbert does not give any specific features to separate
velutina
from
papilionaris
. The only example of
papilionaris
available to Houlbert was
Westwood’s (1877)
stylised figure (
Fig. 8C
) (see
amethystina
and
affinis
), so any comparisons he made were meaningless. Comparing a large series of
velutina
with the few known specimens of
p.
papilionaris
, it is not possible to see any consistent differences; therefore, we hereby synonymise
velutina
with
papilionaris
.
Material examined:
For this study, as well as the
types
, we have examined
31 males
and
26 females
from
Ecuador
, and
32 males
and
24 females
from
Peru
, as well as
25 males
and
10 females
for which we do not have locality data
.