Hylaea compararia
Creators: name: Sihvonen, Pasi
name: Skou, Peder
name: Flamigni, Claudio
name: Fiumi, Gabriele
name: Hausmann, Axel
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2014
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Geometridae
Hylaea
Hylaea compararia

description: Hylaea compararia (Staudinger, 1894), revised status
compararia Staudinger, 1894, Dt. ent. Z. Iris 7: 289, (Ellopia?). Syntypes male, female, Algeria, near Tenied el Had.
Description. External characters and pregenital abdomen (Figures 4, 9) (diagnostic characters underlined): Wingspan male 28–30 mm, female 29–31 mm. Small species, wings dull green, medial lines weak, whitish. Medial line absent or very weak, basal part not parallel with costa. Postmedial line weak, straight, angled before it reaches costa well before apex, straight on inner margin. Medial area concolorous with rest of wing. Terminal line and fringes whitish, forewing apex whitish. Hindwing postmedial line weak, straight. Discal spots absent. Wings below as above, but paler. Frons pale brown, thorax and abdomen concolorus with wings. Area between antennae (vertex) white. Antennae white dorsally, male antennae bipectinate, female antennae fasciculate. Hindleg tibia of both sexes with 2+2 spurs. Tympanal organs medium-sized. Sternites and tergites 3–8 of both sexes undifferentiated.
Male genitalia (Figure 13): Generally as in H. fasciaria (Linnaeus), H. mediterranea and H. pinicolaria (Bellier). Aedeagus with additional arm, apex expanded in H. compararia (not expanded in above-mentioned species). Base of vesica with angled row of microcornuti, reaching aedeagus apex in H. compararia (with straight row of microcornuti, not reaching aedeagus apex in above-mentioned species).
Female genitalia (Figure 17): Generally as in H. fasciaria, H. mediterranea and H. pinicolaria, but with following quantitative differences: genitalia small in H. compararia (large in above-mentioned species). Signum absent or minute in H. compararia (signum large in H. mediterranea). Shape and size of the lamella antevaginalis, and width and length of the posterior part of the corpus bursae are variable and should be treated with caution.
Distribution. Known from northern Algeria (> 100 specimens in the NHM), cf. Prout (1912 –1916) and Tunisia (one male in ZSM).
Phenology. Potentially bivoltine. Specimens have been taken in May, June, July and in September.
Biology. No data. Larva potentially feeds on needles of coniferous trees.
Habitat. According to the original description (Staudinger, 1894: 289) ’putatively in coniferous forest’.
Similar species. All four species in Palaearctic Hylaea fasciaria species group are similar. H. compararia is small, medial lines are weak, microcornuti in vesica reach the aedeagus apex and signum is absent or minute (H. fasciaria, H. mediterranea and H. pinicolaria are larger, medial lines are more visible, microcornuti in vesica do not reach the aedeagus apex and signum is larger). The diagnostic, external characters shown in Figures 6–9 are somewhat tentative and should not be used in isolation, but should be combined with other information including biology, collecting locality, male and female genitalia and DNA barcodes. An overview of diagnostic morphological features is given in Table 1.
Genetic data. Data not available.
Variation (Figure 4): Little: in most specimens forewing medial line is absent or very weak, postmedial line is weak but visible. Some females have forewing margin slightly concave below forewing apex.
Remarks. Ellopia (?) compararia Staudinger has been considered valid at species level, for instance in Prout (1912 –1916) and Wehrli (1939 –1954) until Leraut (2009) downgraded it to subspecies of H. fasciaria (Linnaeus). Of the four species in the Palaearctic Hylaea fasciaria complex, this is the most distinct, diagnosable by external characters and by the male and female genitalia. We consider H. compararia (Staudinger) valid at species level (status revised).
description: Published as part of Sihvonen, Pasi, Skou, Peder, Flamigni, Claudio, Fiumi, Gabriele & Hausmann, Axel, 2014, Revision of the Hylaea fasciaria (Linnaeus, 1758) species group in the western Palaearctic (Lepidoptera: Geometridae, Ennominae), pp. 469-486 in Zootaxa 3768 (4) on pages 482-483, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3768.4.5, http://zenodo.org/record/4909658