Clito palotschka Grishin, new species
Creators: name: Grishin, Nick V.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2014
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Hesperiidae
Clito
Clito palotschka

description: Clito palotschka Grishin, new species
(Figs. 1–6, 24, 26 h, j–k, 27 part, 28 part)
Description. Male: (Figs. 1–6): right forewing length = 16.3 mm in holotype, 16 mm and 14.6 mm in paratypes. Forewing elongated, triangular, apex not produced, outer margin convex, straighter near tornus, costal fold between 1/6 from the base to half of costa, scales inside beige in color. Dorsal forewing brown, overscaled with olive-gray, discal hyaline spots in discal, Cu1-Cu2, and Cu2-2A cells shaped on the right forewing as U, V, and w (or mirror of ב, <, and ε, viewing base-to-apex, reading costa-to-inner margin), respectively, middle spot the largest, in one paratype not fully clefted distad but arrowhead-shaped, discal cell spot basal margin angled to costa, posterior half thicker than anterior half; a broad Ω (or ל) -shaped belt of six smaller submarginal hyaline spots in cells between R3 and Cu1 vein. Ventral forewing pattern similar to dorsal, discal spots slightly broader, background paler closer to inner margin. Hindwing triangular, anal margin longer than costal margin, tornus and apex not produced, margin mildly convex, slightly indented at M1 and Cu2 veins. Dorsal hindwing brown, overscaled with olive-gray, with a slightly paler, off-white discal band from Sc+R1 vein to 2A vein, a quarter of the wing width at the level of discal cell, band broadest when crossing the base of M3-Cu1 cell, then narrowing abruptly to a well-defined B-shaped white patch half of the band width in Cu2-2A cell, its distal margin strongly offset basad at the vein Rs (or, the basal Rs-M1 cell pale spot offset distad), brown end-of-cell bar, more or less defined and interrupted in the middle, pale spot in Sc+R1-Rs cell rhomboid, about half of the maximal band width; vague, slightly paler than background submarginal and marginal blotches of gray-olive scales in every cell, costal cell paler than background, anal fold brown. Ventral hindwing pattern similar to dorsal, but slate overscaling more extensive basad, pale areas more contrasting with brown background, discal band paler, almost white, with sharply defined edges, end-of-cell bar weaker than above, 2A cell to inner margin with a broad central paler area, submarginal and marginal pale blotches weaker than above or not expressed. Fringes brown, the same color as wing margins. Head, thorax and abdomen grayish olive brown above, slate beneath with palpi and pectus yellower, head above with patches of paler scales on palpi, frons, above the eyes and on collar, white spots posteriad antennae above the eyes, antenna dark brown, largely slate at anterior margin basad, partly ringed with white beneath at segments near club, nudum reddish brown with 22 segments (n=2), legs brown with slate and brown yellowish scales.
Male genitalia: (Figs. 24 and 26 h, j–k, 27 part): tegumen broad and short, only slightly extending anteriad of vinculum; uncus undivided, almost straight in lateral view, with a pair of small lateral lobes at the base; gnathos separated from uncus by a distance of its length; saccus short and rounded, about two time broader than vinculum; valva elongated, with a very long, 4 times longer than wide, in length equal to the length of cucullus, rod-shaped process originating from costa closer to the base of valva, directed posterodorsad, and terminating in a stronger sclerotized, granular tip, no processes from sacculus; cucullus about equal to body of valva in length, broad, but elongated, about half of its length (anteroposterior direction) in height (dorso-ventral direction), not separated from ampulla, dorsal edge of valva evenly concave from the base of the process to the caudal end of cucullus, cucullus slightly bent dorsal, terminating in finely serrated area pointing dorsad; penis broad, longer than genital capsule, elevating distad dorsal serrated ridge 1/3 from distal end angled ventral projection near apex, a pack of longer cornuti and a row of smaller cornuti.
Female: unknown or unrecognized.
Types. Holotype male, with the following labels: white, printed: // ECUADOR: Esmeraldas / El Durango, 39 Km / San Lorenzo-Lita Road / 1° 02.45' N, 78° 38.06' W / 4 March 2001, 230– 300 m / D. H. Ahrenholz leg. //; white, handwritten: // overcast / hilltop / lightgap //; red, printed: // HOLOTYPE ♂ / Clito palotschka / Grishin //. Two male paratypes from the same location, collected 25, 27 Aug 2002 by J. P. W. Hall & M. A. Solis. The holotype and paratypes are in the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA (USNM).
Type locality. Ecuador: Esmeraldas Province, El Durango, km 39 Lita - San Lorenzo road, 1° 02.45' N, 78° 38.06' W, elevation about 300 m.
Etymology. " Palotschka " (палочка, pronounced similar to "pal-otch-kah" with the stress on the first syllable, i.e., "pa"[as in papa]-"lo"[as in log]-"ch"[as the first sound in check]-"kah" [as in cat], or /ˈpalət͡ ɕkə/ in International Phonetic Alphabet) is a Russian word that means a small stick or a rod, and also a letter of the Cyrillic script: "Ӏ". It refers to a rod-shaped projection off the costa in male genitalic valva, which is the most distinctive character of this new species that immediately sets it apart from all recognized Clito species. The spelling of the name is chosen to increase the chances it would be pronounced correctly in different languages. The name is a non-latinized noun in apposition.
Distribution. The species is currently known only from the type locality (Fig. 28).
Diagnosis. The new species belongs to the C. littera group because it possesses distally deeply clefted U- or Vshaped spots in the forewing discal cell and in cell Cu1-Cu2, in wing patterns being close to C. jonkersi. It shares the following characters only with C. jonkersi, and not with the other Clito species: (a) the valva with a process on the costa; (b) the hindwing with a narrower pale discal band, edges of the band better defined; (c) the spot in Sc+R1-Rs cell rhomboid and indented basad relatively to the spot at the base of Rs-M1 cell.
It differs from the closest species, C. jonkersi, by the following characters: (1) the process from the costa on the valva is long, rod-shaped, at least 4 times its diameter, the same length as the cucullus, not stout and much shorter than the cucullus; (2) this process is closer to the base of the valva than to the base of the cucullus; (3) the cucullus is prominently elongated, not nearly square; (4) the ventral hindwing is without a row of prominent submarginal spots. These characters are given in the key below, illustrated in Fig. 27, and localities of the C. littera group species mapped in Fig. 28.
A specimen of the following new species was identified as " C. littera anda " by S. S. Nicolay, probably because it matched characters of C. littera as given in Evans (1953) but the locality (Venezuela) was closer to that of C. anda. However, this specimen is clearly not C. anda due to ample differences in genitalia and wing patterns as discussed and illustrated below. A closer analysis suggested that it was not C. littera either. This species is named here.
description: Published as part of Grishin, Nick V., 2014, Two new species of Clito from South America and a revision of the Clito littera group (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae: Pyrginae), pp. 231-248 in Zootaxa 3861 (3) on pages 238-241, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3861.3.2, http://zenodo.org/record/252285