Alesa Doubleday 1847
Creators: name: Santos, Wildio Ikaro Da Graça
name: Dolibaina, Diego Rodrigo
name: Dias, Fernando Maia Silva
name: Mielke, Olaf Hermann Hendrik
name: Casagrande, Mirna Martins
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Riodinidae
Alesa

description: Alesa Doubleday, 1847
Alesa Doubleday, 1847. List. Lep. Brit. Mus. 2, p. 1; included species: Alesa prema, Alesa smaragdifera, Alesa priolas — Westwood, 1851, in Doubleday. Gen. diurn. Lep. 2, p. 417.—Herrich-Schäffer, 1853. Samml. bek. aussereurop. Schmett., p. 55.—Ménétriés, 1855. Enum. Corp. Anim. Mus. Petrop., Lep. 1, p. 50.—Weidemeyer, 1864. Proc. ent. Soc. Philad. 2: 30.—Bates, 1868. Journ. Linn. Soc. London, Zool. 9 (39): 5.—Herrich-Schäffer, 1868. Corr.-Blatt zool.-min. Ver. Regensburg 22: 121.—Kirby, 1871. Syn. Cat. diurn. Lep., p. 286.— Scudder, 1875. Proc. Amer. Ac. Sc. 10: 107; type species: [Erycina] prema.—M̂schler, 1876. Verh. zool.-bot. Ges. Wien 26: 303.—Wallace, 1876. Geogr. Verbreit Thiere 2, p. 518.—Kirby, 1879. Cat. Coll. diurn. Lep. Hewsiton, p. 274.—Glaser, 1887. Cat. etymol. Coleopt. Lepid., p. 274.—Staudinger & Schatz, 1888, in Staudinger & Schatz. Exot. Schmett. 1, p. 242.—R̂ber, 1892, in Staudinger & Schatz. Exot. Schmett. 2, p. 238.—Mengel, 1905. Cat. Erycinidae, p. 40, 54.— Stichel, 1910, in Wytsman (ed.). Gen. Ins. 112A, p. 79.— Seitz, 1916. Gross-Schmett. Erde 5, p. 651.—Dalla Torre, 1927. Ent. Nachr.-Bl., Troppau, 1: 3.— Stichel, 1930. Lep. Cat. 40, p. 292.—Hemming, 1967. Bull. Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.), Ent., Suppl. 9: 36.—Brown, 1993. Occas. Paper IUCN Sp. Surv. Comm. 8: 59.— d’Abrera, 1994. Butt. Neotrop. Region 6, Riodinidae, p. 933.— Hall, 2003. Syst. Ent. 28: 23; [indirectely synonymized Mimocastnia].— Callaghan & Lamas, 2004, Riodinidae, p. 148, in Lamas (ed.). Checklist: Part 4A. Hesperioidea—Papilionoidea, in Heppner (ed.) Atlas of Neotropical Lepidoptera 5A; syn.: Mimocastnia.— Hall & Ahrenholz, 2010. Trop. Lep. Res. 20 (1): 19.
Mimocastnia Seitz, 1913. Gross-Schmett. Erde 5, pl. 127 (Mimocastnia rothschildi).— Seitz, 1916. Gross-Schmett. Erde 5, p. 652; type species: Mimocastnia rothschildi Seitz, 1913.— Stichel, 1930. Lep. Cat. 40, p. 295.— d’Abrera, 1994. Butt. Neotrop. Region 6, Riodinidae, p. 934.— Brévignon & Gallard, 1997. Lambillionea 97 (3)(1): 334.— Hall & Ahrenholz, 2010. Trop. Lep. Res. 20 (1): 21.
Type species of Alesa. Erycina prema Godart, [1824], by subsequent designation by Scudder (1875).
Type species of Mimocastnia: Mimocastnia rothschildi Seitz, 1913, by original designation.
Diagnosis. As one of the two genera included in the subtribe Eurybiina, species of Alesa and Eurybia can be distinguished from other species of Riodinidae by the following characters: eyes with a metallic bluish-green gloss in live specimens; bristlelike scales on medial surface of labial palpi; male genital capsule posteriorly directed; and setose transtilla with three processes, one central and two lateral (Hall 2003). Alesa is distinguished from its sister genus Eurybia by their generally smaller size and by the following characters: presence of bristlelike scales only on the medial surface of the first segment of the labial palpi; third segment of the labial palpi longer than half distance between antennae; male forewing upper side with submarginal dark spots at center of the intervenal spaces; submarginal spots rectangular, restricted to the hindwing; marked sexual dimorphism; and male genitalia with a wide median process of transtilla.
Redescription. Head: 2.5 times wider than high; frons whitish to yellow-orangish, with an anterior dark brown spot extending dorsally to the posterior margin of head; paraocular area and below and behind eyes from whitish to yellowish orange. Eyes naked, covering about 2/3 of the head, with metallic bluish-green gloss (evident in live specimens). Labial palpus narrow, slightly flattened laterally, extending up to 2/3 of eyes’ height, mostly whitish to yellow-orangish, third segment and ventral end of second segment dark brown; first segment short, twice longer than wide, anterodorsally directed; second segment more or less erect, three times longer than the first; third segment cylindrical, almost as long as half the length of the second, anterodorsally directed, distally pointed; females with longer labial palpus, almost reaching the height of the eye. Antenna length ranging from 60% (“ prema and telephae groups”) to 70% (“ amesis group”) of forewing length; shaft dark brown; club short and flattened with a ventral keel, distal segments with orange-reddish nudum.
Thorax: dorsally similar to the color of the bands of the wings upper side, ventrally similar to the ground color of the wings underside.
Prothoracic leg: covered by long, filiform scales, with the same ground color of the wings underside; coxa narrow and elongated at the base in males and short in females; tarsus fused in males and segmented in females, about the same length of the tibia; femur slighly larger than tibia.
Mesothoracic and metathoracic legs: slender, one third larger than the prothoracic leg, covered by short scales and of the same color; coxa short, femur slightly curved and larger than the tibia; tibia with distal tiny spines; tarsi slightly projected distally with dark brown scales.
Forewing: costal margin slightly convex, apex rounded, outer margin convex, tornus obtuse and anal margin straight; with five radial veins, discal cell about half the length of wing; both sides with four transversal bands, one basal, one postbasal, one discal and one postdiscal; forewing upper side with submarginal dark spots between veins, usually merging with the postdiscal band.
Hindwing: rounded, costal margin slightly convex, apex rounded, outer margin convex, tornus obtuse and anal margin convex; discal cell about as long as half the length of the wing; underside with a row of pale rectangular submarginal ocelli-like spots from Rs to 3A, delimited anteriorly by a darker postdiscal band and posteriorly by the marginal line, with a black central element, more developed and usually iridescent in M 1 –M 3 and CuA 2 –2A (except in A. rothschildi and A. juliae sp. nov.).
Abdomen: about 1.5x longer than thorax; dorsally similar to the color of the bands of the wings upper side, ventrally similar to ground color of the wings underside.
Male genitalia: tegumen with a long and broad ventral lobe; two separated lateral fenestra between tegumen and uncus; uncus dorsally rectangular, wider than long, with a median indentation producing two lobes in posterior margin; anterior projection of saccus about as long as uncus; valva rectangular basally, distally divided in an lower/ outer and another upper/inner process; transtilla fused to the upper process of valva, with a median esclerotized process laterally limited by two setose processes; fultura inferior short and narrow, joining aedeagus just posterior to its mid-length; aedeagus 2 to 2.5x the combined length of tegumen and the uncus, as wide as 2/3 the width of valvae, straight to slightly curved dorsoventrally, 40–45% of its length tapered to a ventral posterior tip, ejaculatory bulb opens anteriorly and vesica without cornuti.
Female genitalia: papilla analis more or less triangular, posterior half setose; sterigma as a narrow incomplete ring; ostium variably membranous to sclerotized; ductus bursae long and narrow, frequently with a sclerotized incomplete ring near ostium; bursa copulatrix distinctively shorter and wider than ductus bursae, with a pair of lateral signa (absent in A. juliae sp. nov.).
Key to species groups
1 Frons with yellow lateral bands.......................................................................... 2
1’ Frons without yellow lateral bands............................................................ “ prema group”
2 Antennal club tip dorsally black............................................................. “ telephae group”
2’ Antennal club tip dorsally white.............................................................. “ amesis group”
description: Published as part of Santos, Wildio Ikaro Da Graça, Dolibaina, Diego Rodrigo, Dias, Fernando Maia Silva, Mielke, Olaf Hermann Hendrik & Casagrande, Mirna Martins, 2023, A review of the South American metalmark genus Alesa Doubleday, 1847 (Lepidoptera: Riodinidae: Eurybiini) with the description of two new species, pp. 77-120 in Zootaxa 5284 (1) on pages 79-80, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5284.1.3, http://zenodo.org/record/7919001