Calodesma pseudocollaris Cock & Laguerre & Buddie & Cafa & Alston-Smith & Morrall & Gosula 2023, new species
Creators: name: Cock, Matthew J. W.
name: Laguerre, Michel
name: Buddie, Alan G.
name: Cafa, Giovanni
name: Alston-Smith, Scott
name: Morrall, John
name: Gosula, Venkata Siva
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Arctiidae
Calodesma
Calodesma pseudocollaris

description: Calodesma pseudocollaris Cock, new species,
BIN: BOLD:AEI2170
urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: 464505E0-2DFE-4146-9C03-0D74A6A5E8AE
(Figs. 9, 10, 16)
Type material. Holotype ♁: Trinidad, W.I., Cat’s Hill, eupatorium flowers, 24.ix.2017, John Morrall / DNA sample 135, M.J.W. Cock / M.J.W. Cock dissection 1001 / Holotype Calodesma pseudocollaris Cock (to be deposited in NHMUK, ex MJWC).
Allotype ♀: Trinidad, W.I., Cat’s Hill, eupatorium flowers, 24.ix.2017, John Morrall / DNA sample 143, M.J.W. Cock / Allotype Calodesma maculifrons pseudocollaris Cock (to be deposited in NHMUK, ex MJWC).
Paratype ♁: Trinidad, W.I., Cat’s Hill, eupatorium flowers, 24.ix.2017, John Morrall / DNA sample 137, M.J.W. Cock / Paratype Calodesma maculifrons pseudocollaris Cock (to be deposited in NHMUK, ex MJWC).
Diagnosis. Calodesma pseudocollaris new species has males of a collaris morph and the only known female is a white morph resembling the type of C. plorator. It cannot be distinguished from these morphs of C. militta on external morphology or reliably on male genitalia, but can be separated by its DNA barcode. Having said that, the aedeagus of C. pseudocollaris new species was noted to be less elongate distally, with a shorter distal opening compared to C. militta, but individual variation would need to be evaluated on a larger sample before this could be relied upon as a diagnostic feature. Further, the two males are slightly smaller than typical for Trinidad material of C. militta, i.e. forewing length 17–19 mm (male), 20 mm (female), compared to male collaris morph 19.2 mm (range 18–20, n=6) and white female morphs 21.3 mm (range 20–22 mm, n=18) of C. militta, but again we have not seen enough material of C. pseudocollaris new species to know whether this could be a useful character. Males resembling C. dioptis and females with other variants of the white markings or females with orange or red markings as found in C. militta are not known for this new species, but the small sample size does not preclude these possibilities.
Description. Male as shown in Figs. 9 A-B (full view), 16 A–C (head and anterior thorax), and 10 (male genitalia). Head. Lateral and ventral head orange; dorsum dark, with two white dots above the scape; frons dark with some orange setae and a white border; antennae black, with white scaling on pedicel, bipectinate almost to apex; eyes black; labial palpi segment 1 pale orange; labial palpi segments 2 and 3 black with inner lower margin white. Thorax. Collar orange. Dorsally black apart from inner margins of tegulae are white-orange and there is a very short orange dorsal line between the tegulae. Ventrally prothorax and mesothorax orange shading into blackish posteriorly on mesothorax; metathorax black. Forelegs back, with two white-orange lines on the femur, two white lines on the posterior tibia and white scales on the outer margin of the remainder of the leg. Midlegs black, with one (holotype) or two (paratype) white lines the length of posterior tibia, and the remainder of the leg dark (holotype), or with white scales on outer margin (paratype). Hindlegs missing on holotype; as midlegs on paratype.Abdomen black, the posterior margin of the sternites white, and orange scales around the edge of the genitalia. Wings. Forewing length 17 mm (holotype), 19 mm (paratype). Dorsal forewing black, with the veins of the dorsal half paler; large white postdiscal spot; fringe black, weakly white at apex. Ventral forewing black; white postdiscal spot as dorsally; fringe white at apex, weakly so in spaces 1B and 2 (CU 2 -2A and Cu 1 -Cu 2). Dorsal hindwing black, with a narrow, faint white spot at apex; fringe white. Ventral hindwing black, with veins paler in the basal part of the wing; apical spot more clearly marked than in dorsal view; fringe white. Genitalia. Small and weakly sclerotised. Tegumen domed and bulbous. Uncus simple, acute, strongly downcurved distally; a broad, bilobed, very weakly sclerotised dorsal project projects posteriorly behind tegumen. Valvae almost membranous, simple. Saccus well developed. Aedeagus short, with a strong bulbous ventral lobe at base; the apex obliquely truncate; no indication of structures associated with the vesica.
Female as shown in Figs 9 C (full view) and 16 D–F (head and anterior thorax). Generally similar to the male apart from the weakly serrate antennae, no orange scales around genital opening, and the larger, broader, less pointed forewings, and more rounded hindwing. Forewing length 20 mm (allotype). The white markings of the wings differ from the male. Dorsal forewing with the white discal spot narrower, extending to the costa and in a narrow arc to the dorsum just basal to tornus; the white markings on the costa and in space 3 (M 3 -Cu 1) are suffused with black. Ventral forewing as dorsal; fringe black. Dorsal hindwing with no white apical spot; a weak white marginal-submarginal band, strongly suffused with black and with the veins black; the band starts narrow on the margin in space 1B (Cu 2 - 2A) and widens and separates from the margin until space 5 (M 1 -M 2). Ventral hindwing as dorsal but marginal-submarginal band less suffused with black; fringe black, slightly paler at apex. Genitalia not examined.
DNA barcodes. Three identical barcodes were obtained, which form BIN BOLD:AEI2170, most similar to C. sp. cf. collaris BOLD:ABZ2392 and C. maculifrons BOLD:AAA1430 (Fig. 12).
Variability. Only two males of the collaris morph and one white female morph have been sequenced. Given these small numbers and the relative frequency of the different morphs in C. militta, our sample is too small to comment on the probability of this subspecies occurring in other morphs and colours.
Distribution. Trinidad and Tobago, Trinidad: Cat’s Hill (type series). This is an area of disturbed lowland forest with scattered on-going oil extraction using pumpjacks.
Etymology. The name refers to the resemblance of the males to C. collaris, but that they are a different species, i.e. false collaris. The original name, collaris, is adjectival in the genitive case, unchanging for gender agreement; it refers to the orange collar.
description: Published as part of Cock, Matthew J. W., Laguerre, Michel, Buddie, Alan G., Cafa, Giovanni, Alston-Smith, Scott, Morrall, John & Gosula, Venkata Siva, 2023, Using DNA barcodes to test the association of sexes and morphs in Calodesma spp (Lepidoptera, Erebidae, Arctiinae, Arctiini, Pericopina) of Trinidad, West Indies with an overview of the genus, taxonomic changes and a new species, pp. 231-261 in Zootaxa 5270 (2) on pages 254-256, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5270.2.4, http://zenodo.org/record/7850665