Amblyteria Grishin, 2019

Zhang, Jing, Cong, Qian, Shen, Jinhui, Opler, Paul A. & Grishin, Nick V., 2019, Changes to North American butterfly names, The Taxonomic Report of the International Lepidoptera Survey 8 (2), pp. 1-12 : 7-8

Amblyteria Grishin , new subgenus

http://zoobank.org/ C1F98F8D-C366-4065-9317-EA039D15CB22

Type species. Goniloba exoteria Herrich-Schäffer, 1869 .

Definition. A prominent clade within Amblyscirtes Scudder, 1872 (type species Hesperia vialis W. H. Edwards, 1862 ) without a name ( Fig. 11 , 12 ). Keys to N.2.2, 6, 8, or 22 in Evans (1955). Phenotypically diverse lineage of species that differs from its relatives by the following combination of characters: males either with stigma long, narrow and rather straight, hindwing below with many small white spots in some species, and size small (forewing length mostly <15mm), or if larger, then forewing pale spot in cell M 1 - M 2 strongly offset towards outer margin; or with brands at the base of vein CuA 2, and brands either very conspicuous on bronze-colored wings, or wings black, head orange and fringes not orange but pale. Due to this pronounced phenotypic variation, the subgenus is best defined by DNA characters. A combination of the following base pairs in the standard DNA COI barcode region (658 bp) is diagnostic: T548C, A550T (these two characters are synapomorphic), 343(not G as in Stomyles ), T346T(not C as in Stomyles ), T553T(not A as in the nominal subgenus), and A637A(not T as in Stomyles ).

Etymology. The name is a feminine noun in the nominative singular, a fusion of the type species name epithets: Amby [scirtes] + [exo] teria.

Species included. Amblyscirtes elissa Godman, [1900] , Pamphila oslari Skinner, 1899 , Amblyscirtes brocki Freeman, 1992 , Goniloba exoteria Herrich-Schäffer, 1869 , and Pamphila phylace Edwards, 1878 .

Parent taxon. Genus Amblyscirtes Scudder, 1872 .

Assignment of species to subgenera. With the description of Amblyteria subgen. n., we consider that the genus Amblyscirtes consists of 4 subgenera ( Fig. 12 ). Subgenus Stomyles Scudder, 1872 (Eastern US clade) consists of A. carolina (Skinner, 1892), A. reversa F. Jones, 1926 , A. aesculapius (Fabricius, 1793), and A. hegon (Scudder, 1863) . Subgenus Mastor Godman, [1900] (Southern clade) consists of A. fimbriata (Plötz, 1882) (the only USA species), A. anubis (Godman, 1900) , A. novimmaculatus A. Warren, 1998 , A. raphaeli H. Freeman, 1973 , A. patriciae (E. Bell, 1959) , and A. folia Godman, 1900 . Names of type species are underlined. Other Amblyscirtes species ( Mielke 2005; Pelham 2008) not mentioned here belong to the nominal subgenus.

Comment. A surprising result is that two very similar-looking species A. (Amblyteria) phylace and A. (Mastor) fimbriata are not each other's closest relatives and belong to different subgenera ( Fig. 12 ).

Figures

Fig. 11. Nastra and no Vidius.

Fig. 12. Amblyscirtes.