Lithosia Fabricius 1798
Creators: name: Dubatolov, Vladimir V.
name: Zolotuhin, Vadim V.
name: Witt, Thomas J.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2016
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Arctiidae
Lithosia

description: Lithosia Fabricius, 1798
Lithosia Fabricius, 1798, Suppl. Ent. Syst.: 418, 459. TS: Phalaena quadra Linnaeus, 1758; Syst. Nat. (Edn. 10) 1: 511, by subsequent designation by Latreille, 1810; Considérations générales sur l’Ordre naturel des Animaux: 441 (but attributed to Fabricius, an incorrect authorship).
Lithosis Billberg, 1820, Enum. Ins. Mus. Billb.: 91. Status: unjustified emendation.
= Lichenia Sodoffsky, 1837, Bull. Soc. Imp. Nat. Moscou 1837 (6): 85, unnecessary replacement name for Lithosia Fabricius, 1798.
Description. Generic characters were already designated by Hampson (1900). Palpi short, semicircular, upturned to the frons hind edge; proboscis fully developed. Antennae with cilia and bristles. Middle tibiae with apical pair of short spurs, hind tibiae with two pairs of short spurs. Forewing long and narrow; costal margin nearly straight. Forewing venation: subcostal vein free; R1 and R2 arise from the discal cell not far from the apex; (R3+R4)+R5 stalked; R2 anastomosing with R3+5 to form the areole; M1 arise from well below upper angle of the discal cell; M2, M3 and Cu1 from hind angle of the discal cell, the two latter sometimes shortly stalked; Cu2 from before middle of discal cell; anal vein free. Hindwing venation: Sc from middle of discal cell, Rs and M1 coincident in male, stalked in female; M2 absent; M3 and Cu1 stalked; Cu2 from middle of discal cell; two anal veins free. Head grey, vertex and occiput orange in males; head entirely yellow in females; proboscis yellow. Thorax, patagia and tegulae orange. Abdomen yellow with a noticeable mixture of dark grey hair-like scales, mostly at basal 1/3 and tip. Wing pattern (Figs 1–12) diagnostic for the genus: male forewings grey, with orange base and dark costal stroke here, hindwings yellow with apical darkening; in female wings yellow, forewing with two dark rounded spots: one between costa and upper angle of discal cell, another between Cu2 and A. Male genitalia (Figs 33–41). Uncus rather broad, downturned at apex, cucullus broad and membranous, sacculus sclerotized, constricted to apex. Harpe present, forming a short and broad process. Juxta short, triangular. Saccus concave apically. Aedeagus short, lacking spines. Vesica with a single cornutus. Female genitalia (Figs 42–45). Papillae anales typical in size and shape, posterior apophyses not longer than papillae anales; however, they have no taxonomic value. Anterior apophyses strongly reduced. Postvaginal plate semiovoid or trapezoid. Antevaginal plate forming two folds on the sides of vaginal sinus. Ductus bursae broad, sclerotized, covered with rather visible spines. Сorpus bursae globular, without signa.
Diagnosis. The genus is characterized by the following features:
• sexual dimorphism distinct; male forewings rather patternless; female forewings yellow with two black spots; • hindwing venation: Rs and M1 stalked, not coincident in both sexes; three veins arise from the hind angle of the
discal cell on forewings;
• male genitalia: harpe present, broad (this is the most conspicuous autapomorphic character);
• female genitalia: corpus bursae shorter than ductus bursae, the former lacking signa; vaginal sinus with two
creases on antevaginal plate.
Range (Fig. 56). The genus have Amphipalearctic distribution, with a gap in Siberia from the Ural Mts. to Eastern Transbaikalia. Possible reasons for this gap was discussed by Dubatolov & Kosterin (2000).
Remarks. The constitution of this genus was controversial, and until the mid 19th century all smaller Lithosia- Eilema -similar species were included here. They were reorganized by Herrich-Schäffer (1845) in other genera; he used Oeonistis for quadra, and Lithosia for other species of the group. The majority of the Palearctic and some Oriental species in this group, traditionally considered to belong to Eilema, were revised by Dubatolov & Zolotuhin (2011) and was separated into several genera, as first proposed by Moore (1878).
The name Oeonistis Hübner, [1819] was sometimes used to designate members of Lithosia in the sense of this article, for example by Herrich-Schäffer (1845), Seitz (1910), etc. However, this is incorrect, as Oeonistis was introduced for another group of large Lithosia -like moths of South-East Asia (Watson et al., 1980) with a wide metallic-green band pattern on the pale yellow wings. The type species of Oeonistis, Phalaena entella Cramer & Stoll, 1779, was designated by Moore (1878) and therefore, it is now used for a separate genus comprising 6 species distributed from south-eastern Asia through Sundaland and New Guinea to New Caledonia and Oceania; this group of species has not yet been revised.
Hampson (1900), Fang (2000) and Witt et al. (2011) included Lithosia subcosteola Druce, 1899 (Fig. 28) into Lithosia. This species was described from Hunan Province of China and is known to occur in the Chinese provinces of Fujian, Hunan, Guangxi, Sichuan and Taiwan (Fang, 2000). However, by external characters, it differs significantly from L. quadra, and resembles “ Eilema ” sensu lato -species due to its dark forewings and a pale line along costa. Thus, Kishida (1992) placed this species in Eilema. Male genitalia of L. subcosteola have never been figured and its type was not carefully studied after description. The type specimen is preserved in BMNH (Hampson, 1900) and was not dissected. Therefore it is impossible to conclude its real taxonomic position. Nevertheless, the present authors exclude this species from real Lithosia, and place it temporally in the unrevised “ Eilema ” sensu lato after Kishida (1992).
Another questionable taxon, Lithosia gynaegrapha de Joannis, 1930, described from Cha Pa (North Vietnam) often has been placed in this genus. The holotype by monotypy, a male, preserved in the MNHN, was dissected during the work of this manuscript. The male genitalia (Fig. 51) and forewing pattern (Figs 29–32) show some similarities with Cybosia Hübner, [1819]. Moreover, its morphology is also not particularly similar to Lithosia. For these reasons, until a full revision is prepared, the authors provisionally place this species within Cybosia: Cybosia gynaegrapha (de Joannis, 1930), comb. nov.
The poorly known taxon, “ Lithosia ” quadra sikkima Strand, 1922 is raised here to species rank and transferred into Conilepia Hampson, 1900 (see below).
Thus, the genus Lithosia currently includes only two species.
description: Published as part of Dubatolov, Vladimir V., Zolotuhin, Vadim V. & Witt, Thomas J., 2016, Revision of Lithosia Fabricius, 1798 and Conilepia Hampson, 1900 (Lepidoptera, Arctiidae), pp. 175-196 in Zootaxa 4107 (2) on pages 176-177, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4107.2.3, http://zenodo.org/record/260857