Afrocerura leonensis
Creators: name: Mulvaney, Lydia R. J.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2021
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Notodontidae
Afrocerura
Afrocerura leonensis

description: Afrocerura leonensis (Hampson, 1910)
(Figs 18‒19, genitalia Fig. 36)
Cerura leonensis Hampson, 1910: 457.
Afrocerura leonensis leonensis (Hampson, 1910): Kiriakoff, 1963: 213.
Name bearing type:
Holotype ♀ (Fig. 18): “// Cerura / leonensis / type ♀. Hmpsn. [handwritten] // Type [circular label with red ring] // S. Leone [handwritten] / Crowley / Bequest. / 1901-78 // Photo done by / A. SCHINTLMEISTER / #9.668 [yellow label]//” (NHMUK).
Additional material examined: (all ANHRT) GUINEA. 3♂♂ – 1413 m, Dalaba, Foret de Goubel, 10°39′27″N, 12°15′44″W, 10‒18.ix.2019, MV Light Trap, leg. Geiser, M., Leno, M., Koivagui, S., Miles, W., Mulvaney, L., & Sáfián, Sz., ANHRT:2019.19, unique numbers ANHRTUK00103027, ANHRTUK00103028 and ANHRTUK00103029, Gen. slide No. LG5368 ♂.
Remarks
This species was described by Hampson (1910), based on a single female holotype from Sierra Leone. Kiriakoff’s (1963) decision to designate a species described from a single female specimen as the type species of a new genus is rather perplexing. The generic description and diagnoses he provides are based on male specimens tentatively identified as conspecific with Hampson’s type. Kiriakoff did not consider the differences he observed in the genitalia of specimens from different geographical regions of Africa to be substantial enough for species level separation and therefore proposed Afrocerura leonensis leonensis (Hampson, 1910) to be the northern race, A. leonensis bifasciata (Janse, 1920) to be the southern race and A. leonensis tanganyikae Kiriakoff, 1963 to be the eastern race of the species. He also referred to the genitalia of leonensis as having a subterminal tooth or hook on the valvae.
Kiriakoff however failed to provide the provenance of the specimen he dissected and as he states that he has examined ‘ leonensis ’ specimens from Togo and eastern D.R. Congo, the true identity of leonensis males remains problematic. There is a male specimen from Nyamunyunye, D.R. Congo in MRAC which was identified as A. leonensis leonensis by Kiriakoff and dissected for his 1963 publication and it is possible that this is the genitalia figured in the publication (although this has not been corroborated).
Nevertheless, on the basis of West African material in the ANHRT, the Nyamunyunye specimen is almost certainly not conspecific with true leonensis. On comparing the genitalia of West African ‘ leonensis ’ and southern African bifasciata specimens with Kiriakoff’s figure of leonensis, it appears Kiriakoff did not figure the genitalia of true leonensis, but a taxon near bifasciata (then a ssp. of leonensis). To add to this conundrum, there are at least two Afrocerura taxa in West Africa of which one almost certainly remains undescribed. A male specimen from Guinea that is phenotypically similar to the holotype female of leonensis exhibited markedly different genitalia (bearing no terminal or subterminal spike or tooth) to Kiriakoff’s figure whilst a male specimen from Liberia (ANHRTUK00101699, LG5361 ♂) possessed subterminal spikes on its valvae and a similarly broad uncus base but the spike was positioned in a completely different orientation to the figure.
With the ambiguity in the literature and without longer series of both sexes from West Africa, it is impossible to identify which of the two West African taxa is true leonensis and therefore, which one requires description. Due to external similarities with the holotype of leonensis the Guinean specimens are tentatively considered here as males of true leonensis and its genitalia illustrated for the first time (Fig. 36). The observed differences in the male genitalia of bifasciata and leonensis support the species rank distinction between the two taxa where leonensis is likely to be a West African vicariant of the southern African bifasciata.
description: Published as part of Mulvaney, Lydia R. J., 2021, Notes on the life history and taxonomy of Cerurina marshalli (Noctuoidea: Notodontidae: Cerurinae), pp. 1-12 in Metamorphosis 32 (1) on page 6, DOI: 10.4314/met.v32i1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/14118452