Stempfferia michelliberti Safian, Warren-Gash & Belcastro 2021, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Sáfián, Szabolcs
name: Collins, Steve
name: Warren-Gash, Haydon
name: Belcastro, Claudio
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2021
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Lycaenidae
Stempfferia
Stempfferia michelliberti

description: Stempfferia michelliberti Sáfián, Warren-Gash & Belcastro sp. nov.
urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:
(Figs 7A, B, 8A–D, 9A, B, 10)
Holotype: • ♀ LIBERIA, Nimba County, Nimba Mountains, Coldwater, ENNR and Blei Community Forest I. 2014. Leg.: Sáfián, Sz. ANHRT unique ID number: ANHRT00157777. Deposited in ANHRT.
Paratypes: • 1♂ SIERRA LEONE, Gola North, Dukor Magboin Tujuma 29.05.2011 Leg. C. Belcastro. Deposited in CB; • 1♂ GUINEA, Forêt Classée de Ziama, Dopamai trail. 11.III.2019, Leg.: Sáfián, Sz., Simonics, G., Florczyk, K., Koivogui, S. Gen. prep. 739/ 21.02.2020 J.Lorenc. Deposited in CEP-MZUJ.
• 1♂ GUINEA, Forêt Classée de Ziama, Dopamai trail. 11.III.2019, Leg.: Sáfián, Sz., Simonics, G., Florczyk, K., Koivogui, S. Deposited in CEP-MZUJ.
• 1♂ IVORY COAST, Alépé, Yaya, C. d’Ivoire 17.09.2000. Leg.: H.W-Gash, Gen. prep.: SAFI 00107. ABRI unique number: ABRI-2016-02792. Deposited in ABRI. • 5♂♂, 2♀♀ IVORY COAST, Alépé, Mont Péko, Leg.: Warren-Gash, H. Deposited in HWG.
Description. Female. Forewing length: ca. 15 mm. Wingspan: ca. 24 mm. Costa and outer margin of forewing rounded, and lacking an acute apex, hindwing also rounded. Upperside ground colour of the forewing black, more blackish-grey on the hindwing. Basal half of both wings covered with a light, slightly iridescent blue patch, excluding a strip along the costa and the majority of space 1a on the hindwing. Outer edge of the forewing patch rather rounded, and well defined with slight blue diffusion. Hindwing’s blue diffusion fan-shaped or a segment of a circle, broadening from the base towards the margin. Its outer edge is strongly diffuse, powdered with tiny blue speckles (Fig. 7A). The underside is chocolate-brown, with a lighter, quite inconspicuous, slightly undulating traverse band in the post-median of forewing, and two rows of chevrons in the sub-marginal area. A light, almost invisible median band is also present. The outer two-thirds of the hindwing has two light brown undulating transverse lines in the median and post-median, and two lines along the margin constituted by chevrons, similarly to the forewing (Fig. 7B). The body is blackish-grey above, chocolate brown below. The legs are ochreous, the eyes are black, bald. The antennae are black above, ringed with white below, their clubs are broken off on the holotype.
Male. Forewing length: 16–16.5 mm (n=2). Wingspan: 29–31 mm. Upperside bright metallic blue with black costa and large black apex on forewing and narrow black margin on hindwing (Figs 8A, C). Underside chocolate brown with faint zig-zagging marginal and submarginal lines on both wings (Figs 8B, D).
Male genitalia. Size and general structure of male genitalia like that of S. zelza. Coremata (removed) rather thick (d = 0.6 mm). Uncus broad, its length half of that of valva. Tegumen squat. Sub-unci long and slender with upcurving tip. Subscaphium straight, slender, its length slightly shorter than length of subunci. Valva elongate but broad, ends in thumb-like protrusion. Dorsal edge slightly angled in middle, ventral one slightly curved inward in basal half. Saccus slender, longer than half the length of valva. Aedeagus strongly bent dorsally, broadest in basal half, narrows down to both tips. Anterior tip narrows down more acutely, while posterior end longer and narrows down more evenly (Figs 9A, B).
Female genitalia. Not examined.
Differential diagnosis. Males of S. michelliberti and S. zelza are most easily separated by their tone of blue, which is more vivid metallic in S. michelliberti and slightly powdery in S. zelza. The colour difference is best seen in natural light and is difficult to reproduce on photographs. The male genitalia do not provide safe identification of the taxa due to observed variation in the shape of valva. In females, the most easily definable diagnostic feature is the black cell-closing streak of S. zelza, which is missing from the three known females of S. michelliberti but is invariably present on the long series of S. zelza females examined. The tone of blue on the pperside of wings also differs slightly but is difficult to define.
Etymology. Anoun in a genitive case, formed directly from a modern personal name of masculine gender (Art. 31.1.2). The authors dedicate this species to Michel Libert renown expert of African Lycaenidae, who has spent years studying Epitola s.l. first in the field in Cameroon, and later in collections all over the world. Michel Libert has most recently published the update of his revision (Libert 2020) with descriptions of 25 new species and another 11 subspecies in addition to the 135 species and 23 subspecies he listed in the original revision (Libert 1999).
Distribution. Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone.
Remark. The species was first found in Ivory Coast by Haydon Warren-Gash, who had the specimens in his collection as an underscribed subspecies of S. zelza but he hesitated to describe it from the limited material, given its general similarity to S. zelza. Afurther male specimen was collected by Claudio Belcastro in the Gola Forests (now Gola Rainforest National Park), Sierra Leone. Sáfián obtained a single female at the foothills of the Liberian Nimba Mountains (Coldwater), he also noticed its difference from S. zelza females (Sáfián 2014). Two further males were collected in the Ziama Forest in Guinea more recently (Sáfián et al. 2020b).
Specific division between the Ghana subregion and the Liberian subregion is not common but nor it is unprecedented. One of the most recent examples in Epitolini appears in Libert (2020), who reinstated Cephetola doleta (Kirby, 1890) from synonymy, for the Liberian subregion populations formerly treated as C. cephena (Hewitson, 1873), while the Ghana subregion populations were assigned to a newly described taxon, C. daveyi occidentalis Libert, 2020.
Stempfferia michelliberti and S. zelza show surprisingly similar distribution pattern (Fig. 10) with rather accurate overlap of the two with the postulated glacial forest refugia as discussed and illustrated in Maley (1996), Robbrecht (1996) and van Rompaey (1996). These refugia form part of the Liberian subregion or serve as a secondary centre of distribution for several restricted-range taxa e.g. Euriphene veronica (Stoll, 1780), E. leonis (Aurivillius, 1899), Euptera dorothea warrengashi Libert, 2002 and Ceratrichia crowleyi Riley, 1925 (Larsen 2005). Alongside the observed morphological differences, S. michelliberti can be recognized and delineated on the basis of evolutionary criteria highlighting the extrinsic biogeographic barriers as defined in de Queiroz, 2008.
description: Published as part of Sáfián, Szabolcs, Collins, Steve, Warren-Gash, Haydon & Belcastro, Claudio, 2021, Description of five new species of Epitola sensu lato (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae Poritiinae) from West and Central Africa, pp. 554-576 in Zootaxa 4981 (3) on pages 563-566, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4981.3.7, http://zenodo.org/record/5046838