Taxonomy | Erebidae | Arctiinae | Lithosiini | "Miltochrista alikangiae"
more "progress" - this time another commonly observed taxon in Hong Kong that has been attributed to the species alikangiae Strand, 1917, until recently in Lyclene and latterly of Miltochrista
There is a recent paper that looks at the alikangiae species group - Volynkin & Černý, 2020 (most of which can be seen on Zenodo - that places this group into a newly described genus: Huangilene. So we now have to refer the Hong Kong taxon to the genus Huangilene. So far, so good. Even I can manage that!
Now is where it pays to be a bit more attentive.
The abstract of Volynkin & Černý, 2020, is as follows (my paragraph formatting to make it easier to follow, with figure numbers from the paper's illustrations (added at the bottom herewith) appended in curly brackets):
Abstract
The new genus Huangilene Volynkin & Černý, gen. n. is erected for the
Miltochrista alikangiae (Strand, 1917) species-group with Lyclene kepica Dubatolov
& Bucsek, 2013 as the type species.
Three new species are described:
H. odontotilepida Volynkin & Černý, sp. n. (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos), {4, 5, 6}
H. kutzscheri Volynkin & Černý, sp. n. (continental China and Taiwan Isl.) {7 to 10} and
H. apoklinousa Volynkin & Černý, sp. n. (Vietnam) {26 to 29}.
Four new combinations are established:
Huangilene kepica (Dubatolov & Bucsek, 2013), comb. n., {1, 2, 3}
H. pseudolutara (N. Singh & Kirti, 2016), comb. n., {11 to 18}
H. alikangiae alikangiae (Strand, 1917), comb. n. {19 to 22}
H. alikangiae intermedia (Marumo, 1923), comb. n. {23 to 25}
The lectotype is designated for Asura obsoleta Form alikangiae Strand, 1917,
the species’ type locality is fixed as “Karapin” (Taiwan, Chiayi County, Chaoliping).
Now then, for Hong Kong these newly defined taxa do not fit with what can be observed with certainty. On geography, One would expect H. kutzscheri to be the species found in Hong Kong, based on the geographic distribution given by Volynkin & Černý, 2020. However, the males of this taxon do not have black abdominal scales on the last few segments. Of the species that do have black scale tufts, pseudolutara occurs too far west, and has an incomplete ring of black scales, leaving only the Vietnamese taxon, apoklinousa with a full set of balck abdominal scales. The problem here is that the gap between the sub-medial fascia and the post-medial fascia is relatively small compared to that observed in Hong Kong material.
How to get round these differences - well for now I am going to suggest the HK taxon is placed only to genus for iNat id purposes, ie. Huangilene. What are the realistic options? Only time will tell - dissection for morphological analysis of the abdominal components and a thorough molecular analysis are needed to resolve the issue. For now, though, I will refer to the HK taxon as Huangilene sp. cf. apoklinousa.
Source:
https://zenodo.org/record/4418380#.YENMw477SUk
with the species treated on separate pages to the right side (related identifiers..... parts)
Comentarios
Well, as may already have been obvious, I am not very enthusiastic about the big changes with SE Asian Lithosiini taxonomy. Without the sequences it is very hard to tell what is what. In many other groups of biota, the name changes happen after the sequencing, not before. IMHO, still, I think that some of the changes are reasonable but not all.
will BINs of Huangilene differ by more than 10% from other Miltochrista spp..... hmmm. (never mind Asura, Lyclene and others)
Roll on / bring on a PhD student willing to do the mmolecular analysis for this lot.
The four specimens of "Asura" alikangiae on BOLD are all all in the same BIN. They are all from Taiwan and agree on fasciae with the 2020 paper.
That's a start!
update . . . see https://resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/syen.12509 for molecular analysis of Barsine / Miltochirsta group.
Ah, thank you. This is very much needed. The diversity seems to be huge; my interpretation is that for some reason in Nudariina the evolutionary processes are "producing" new species and genera (!) easily, fast and efficiently. Also seen in Cyana (e.g. Lourens' studies from Philippine islands). Of course, all this blows one's mind. This also further supports Volynkin's splitting behaviour, and maybe someone else's as well.
And yes, a few PhD students would be good studying this... this also makes it clear how little we know, and how much we thought we knew... and lastly, the need to collect more is made very clear (and as you say, to stay on the genus level with iNat-identifications).
Take care!
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