Panthea furcilla subsp. furcilla furcilla (Packard
Creators: name: Anweiler, Gary G.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2009
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Pantheidae
Panthea
Panthea furcilla
Panthea furcilla furcilla (packard)

description: <i>Panthea furcilla furcilla</i> (Packard) Figs. 12-18, 54, 65, 71 <i>Platycerura furcilla</i> Packard, 1864: 3: 331. <i>Panthea furcilla</i> (Packard); Smith 1891: 31; Smith and Dyar 1898:15; Dyar 1902: 98; Smith 1903: 98; Barnes and McDunnough 1917: 83; McDunnough 1938: 54; Franclemont and Todd 1983: 134. <i>Diphthera furcilla</i> (Packard); Draudt. In: Seitz 1924: 18. <i>Panthea furcilla pallescens</i> McDunnough, 1937: 153; McDunnough 1938: 54. <b>New synonymy.</b> <i>Panthea pallescens</i> McDunnough, 1942; Forbes 1954: 291; Franclemont and Todd 1963: 134. <i>Panthea pallescens centralis</i> McDunnough, 1942: 94; Franclemont and Todd 1983: 134. <b>New synonymy.</b> <i>Panthea pallescens</i> var. <i>atrescens</i> McDunnough, 1942; Franclemont and Todd 1983: 134. unavailable infrasubspecific name. <b>New synonomy.</b> <b>Type material.</b> <i>Platycerura furcilla</i> Packard, 1864. (2 syntypes, one apparently lost). The extant syntype is a dissected male in MCZ, Cambridge MA bearing the following labels: “ <i>Furcilla</i> Type”/ “M.C.Z. Type 26319”/ <i>Platycerura furcilla</i> Pack. Type”/ “745”/#245” and is accompanied by a slide preparation of the valves, aedeagus with everted vesica, and abdominal pelt, with two labels reading “MCZ 1139”/ and “#MZ –1 <i>Platycerura furcilla</i> Pack. Type J.G. Franclemont.” This specimen is hereby designated as lectotype and a label printed on red card reading “ Lectotype / <i>Platycerura furcilla</i> Pack. / G.G. Anweiler 2009” will be placed with the specimen. Dorsal and ventral images of the specimen, the slide and all labels except the lectotype label are available online at http://insects.oeb.harvard.edu/MCZ/FMPro. Type Locality: Massachusetts, USA. <i>Panthea furcilla pallescens</i> McDunnough, 1937. Holotype male, CNC, examined. Type locality: White Point Beach, Queens Co., Nova Scotia, Canada. <i>Panthea pallescens centralis</i> McDunnough, 1942. Holotype male, CNC, examined. Type Locality: Norway Bay, Québec, Canada. <i>Panthea pallescens</i> var. <i>atrescens</i> McDunnough, 1942. Holotype male, CNC, examined. Type Locality: Norway Bay, Québec, Canada. Unavailable infra-subspecific name. <b>Diagnosis.</b> The genitalic characters defining the <i>P</i>. <i>furcilla</i> species-group (inflated vesica elongate with a single terminal cornutus in the male; corpus bursae partially constricted creating two sections in the female) will separate <i>P. furcilla</i> from all other <i>Panthea</i> except <i>P. greyi</i>. The male of <i>P. furcilla</i> can be separated from that of <i>P. greyi</i> by range (<i>P</i>. <i>greyi</i> west of the Great Plains from Colorado south, <i>P</i>. <i>furcilla</i> in Canada and eastern United States east of the Great Plains), and by the much smaller, straighter, terminal cornutus on the vesica. The female of <i>P</i>. <i>greyi</i> has a wide ductus bursae that gradually expands into the corpus bursae; <i>P</i>. <i>furcilla</i> has a narrow ductus that expands abruptly into bursa. Nominate <i>P</i>. <i>furcilla</i> can be separated from ssp. <i>australis</i> by the second, smaller cornutus near the base of the vesica in <i>australis</i>. <b>Distribution and biology.</b> <i>Panthea furcilla</i> occurs widely in coniferous woodlands, in particular pine forests, throughout eastern USA and eastern Canada, from eastern Texas east to Florida, north to the northern edge of the boreal forest in Canada, west to northeastern British Columbia (Fig. 71). Adults fly almost year round at the southern edge of the range in Texas and Louisiana (V. Brou pers. comm.), with the flight period shortening to June and July in boreal Canada. <b>Remarks.</b> For the past 50 years, since McDunnough (1942) treated <i>pallescens</i> as a species apart from <i>P. furcilla</i>, the name <i>pallescens</i> has generally been applied at the species level to the smaller, lighter gray populations of <i>Panthea</i> occurring widely across the northeastern United States and boreal Canada; they are characterized as having a single cornutus on the vesica. The name <i>furcilla</i> has generally been used for the larger, darker <i>Panthea</i> in southeastern United States that has a second smaller “rose-thorn” cornutus on the vesica near the base. McDunnough sent specimens from eastern Canada and from New Jersey to a Dr. Banks to compare with the type of <i>furcilla</i> in MCZ, and based on the response he received, concluded that the male genitalia of <i>furcilla</i> had a short, thick pointed cornutus in the vesica and an apical spine of the so called rosethorn type. The primaries were of a rather even purplish gray with all cross-lines very heavy and black with scarcely any white edging except on the outside of the subterminal line (McDunnough 1942). Based on this information, McDunnough elevated the pale northern population that he had initially described as ssp. <i>pallescens</i> to species status (McDunnough 1942). However, examination of images of the male type of <i>furcilla</i> and in particular the genitalic slide, shows clearly that the type of <i>furcilla</i> is a specimen of the smaller, paler northern <i>Panthea</i> lacking the second “rose-thorn” cornutus, and that the name <i>pallescens</i> is a junior synonym of <i>furcilla</i>. The relationship of these two forms, one smaller and paler with a single cornutus and one larger and darker with a second cornutus (and corresponding differences in the female genitalia) is problematic. There is no clear-cut boundary between the two populations, and no place where the two occur together. Although differing significantly from each other in size, color and genitalic structures over most of their range, specimens gradually shift in all characters from one type to the other across a band from Kentucky north and east through southern Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey (Figs. 19-20, 56 a-d, 66). This appears to be another example of a species separated during the last glacial maximum into populations northwest and southeast of the Appalachians that have since re-established contact, as has been proposed for <i>Grammia virgo</i> by Schmidt (in press). Arguments can be made for recognizing these two taxa as either species or as subspecies; however based on the fact that they show a progressive gradation from one form to the other in color, pattern and genitalic structures, as well as the fact that the two forms do not occur together anywhere, I treat these populations as a single species. The southern form is described as a new subspecies. True melanic specimens of <i>P</i>. <i>furcilla</i> (Fig. 18) are common in some populations of nominate form in eastern United States (Klots 1964, Klots 1966, Klots 1968; Ginevan 1971). Melanic specimens are overall sooty brown with the black lines standing out. Form <i>atrescens</i> (Fig. 16) from Ontario and Quebec is a black and white form, very different in appearance from true melanic specimens.
description: Published as part of <i>Anweiler, Gary G., 2009, Revision of the New World Panthea Hübner (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae) with descriptions of 5 new species and 2 new subspecies, pp. 97-134 in ZooKeys 9 (9)</i> on pages 111-112, DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.9.157, http://zenodo.org/record/576456
description: {"references": ["Packard AS (1864) Synopsis of the Bombycidae of the United States. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Philadelphia 3: 374.", "Smith JB (1891) List of Lepidoptera of boreal America. P. C. Stockhausen, Philadelphia, 124 pp.", "Smith JB, Dyar HG (1898) Contributions toward a monograph of the Lepidopterous Family Noctuidae of boreal North America. A revision of the species of Acronycta (Ochsenheimer) and of certain allied genera. Proceedings of the United States National Museum 21 (1140): 194 pp.", "Dyar HG (1902) A list of North American Lepidoptera and key to the literature of this order of insects. Bulletin of the United States National Museum 52: 1 - 723.", "Smith JB (1903) Check List of the Lepidoptera of Boreal America. American Entomological Society, Philadelphia, vi + 136 pp.", "Barnes W, McDunnough J (1917) Check List of the Lepidoptera of Boreal America. Herald Press, Decatur, 392 pp.", "McDunnough, J (1938) Check list of the Lepidoptera of Canada and the United States of America. Part 1. Macrolepidoptera. Memoirs of the Southern California Academy of Sciences 1: 1 - 272.", "Franclemont JG, Todd EL (1983) Noctuidae. In: Hodges RW (Ed.) Check List of the Lepidoptera of America North of Mexico. EW Classey Ltd. and the Wedge Entomological Research Foundation London, 120 - 159.", "McDunnough J (1937) Undescribed species and varieties of Lepidoptera. Canadian Entomologist 69: 53.", "McDunnough J (1942) Notes on Pantheinae (Lepidoptera, Phalaenidae). Contribution No. 2138, Division of Entomology, Scientific Service. Department of Agriculture, Ottawa. Canadian Entomologist 74: 93 - 95.", "Forbes WTM (1954) Lepidoptera of New York and neighboring states. Part 3 Noctuidae. Memoirs of the Cornell University Agricultural Experimental Station, Memoirs 329: 1 - 433.", "Klots AB (1964) Notes on melanism in some Connecticut moths. Journal of the New York Entomological Society 72: 142 - 144.", "Klots AB (1966) Melanism in Connecticut Panthea furcilla (Packard) Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). Journal of the New York Entomological Society 74: 95 - 100.", "Klots AB (1968) Further notes on melanism in Connecticut Panthea furcilla (Packard) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). Journal of the New York Entomological Society 76: 92 - 95.", "Ginevan ME (1971) Genetic control of Melanism in Panthea furcilla (Packard) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). Journal of the New York Entomological Society 79: 195 - 200."]}