Johnsonita assula Robbins 2004
Creators: name: Bálint, Zsolt
name: Boyer, Pierre
name: Cerdeña, José
name: Larico, Jackie Farfán
name: Brudecka, Jadwiga Lorenc-
name: Prieto, Carlos
name: Pyrcz, Tomasz W.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2021
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Lycaenidae
Johnsonita
Johnsonita assula

description: Johnsonita assula (Draudt, 1919) Robbins, 2004
(Figs 2, 25, 30)
Thecla assula – Draudt 1919 –1921: 748.
Johnsonita assula (Draudt) – Robbins 2004b: 120 [new combination].
Type material (Fig. 25). Described on the basis of two female specimens from Colombia, collected by Anton Heinrich Fassl (1876-1922). One of them is an intact specimen from Bogotá, the other one was worn and broken (without tails) from Monte Socorro. The specimen collected in Bogotá is deposited in the ZMHU. The whereabout of the other specimen is unknown.
Lectotype designation. Aphotograph of the intact specimen is available on www.butterfliesofamerica.com (Warren et al. 2017) and designatedhere as the lectotypewith original labels: “ Bogota, Colombia [//] 28-3200 m [//] Coll. Fassl ” (“white oblong label, printed), “ Typus ”(red oblong label, text printed in black frame), “assula”(white oblong label, handwritten). The name Thecla assula is here fixed to the specimen serving an objective reference to further studies as lectotype.
Material examined (n = 1). COLOMBIA: env. Bogotá, ca. 3000 m, IV. 2008, leg. H. Warren-Gash (UBSD: female).
Redescription. FW costa length: 15 mm (lectotype), costa and outer margin highly bent resulting rounded apex; female dorsal wing surface brown; ventral wing surface medial pattern composed of a continous white line, a lighter brown bordered basally, but dark brown distally running from middle costa to tornus; ventral wing surface inner margin medial area with red scaling. Male is not known.
Diagnosis. The species can be easily recognized on the basis of the unique HW ventral surface pattern; the most remarkable trait is the continuous median line, which is bent and not zigzagged or dashed. On the basis of the observation that the sexual dimorphism in Johnsonita expressed by the dorsal wingsurfaces is moderate, we hypothetise that the hitherto unkown male phenotype has also brown dorsal wings surfaces.
Distribution. Geographical: COLOMBIA (Bogotá) (Fig. 30); spatial: recorded between elevations 3000 and 3200 m a.s.l; temporal: recorded in April.
Note. The species was placed in the monotypic Assula-Gruppe by Draudt (l.c.) between his “Satyrioides-Gruppe” (= genus Macusia Kaye, 1904, and “Marsyas-Gruppe” (= genus Pseudolycaena Wallengren, 1858). Robbins (2004b) transferred this species from Thecla Fabricius, 1807, to the genus Johnsonita. Robbins (op. cit.) put a question- mark beside the name. J. assula has the typical Johnsonita wing shape, but the ventral wing pattern is somewhat unusual with the medial line running to the tornus. The male is unknown. For a long time the species was known only from the type material. Another female specimen was taken in 2008 at approximately 3000 m. a.s.l. at one of the hills overlooking Bogotá (probably: Cerro Monserrate); more recently J. F. Le Crom (Colombia) found another female at around the same altitude on a hilltop at El Tablazo (Warren-Gash, pers. comm.).
description: Published as part of Bálint, Zsolt, Boyer, Pierre, Cerdeña, José, Larico, Jackie Farfán, Brudecka, Jadwiga Lorenc-, Prieto, Carlos & Pyrcz, Tomasz W., 2021, Contributions to the knowledge of Neotropical Lycaenidae: taxonomy of Johnsonita Salazar & Constantino, 1995 with descriptions of seven new species (Theclinae Eumaeini), pp. 11-57 in Zootaxa 4963 (1) on pages 15-16, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4963.1.2, http://zenodo.org/record/4711249