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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Systematic Entomology Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #366760
Research Project: Systematics of Moths Significant to Biodiversity, Quarantine, and Control, with a Focus on Invasive Species

Location: Systematic Entomology Laboratory

Title: Taxonomy of the rivorum species-group of Leucania Ochsenheimer, 1816 (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

Author
item DOLIBAINA, DLEGO RODRIGO - Universidade Federal Do Parana
item CASAGRANDE, MIRNA MARTINS - Universidade Federal Do Parana
item SPECHT, ALEXANDRE - Universidade Federal Do Parana
item MIELKE, OLAF HERMANN HE - Universidade Federal Do Parana
item LEGRAIN, ALBERT - Non ARS Employee
item ZILLI, ALBERTO - London Natural History Museum
item Goldstein, Paul

Submitted to: Zootaxa
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/7/2019
Publication Date: 12/17/2019
Citation: Dolibaina, D., Casagrande, M., Specht, A., Mielke, O.N., Legrain, A., Zilli, A., Goldstein, P.Z. 2019. Taxonomy of the rivorum species-group of Leucania Ochsenheimer, 1816 (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). Zootaxa. 4711(3):545-560.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4711.3.6

Interpretive Summary: The large and complex genus Leucania contains approximately 350 species of grass-feeders worldwide, and is in need of much taxonomic revision. This paper focuses on one species group: it reviews the rivorum group and revises the status of two species based on a combination of morphological characters. This work is of interest to agricultural entomologists, insect taxonomists, and plant-herbivores biologists.

Technical Abstract: The rivorum species-group of the American Leucania (Noctuidae: Noctuinae: Mythimnini) is circumscribed and taxonomically revised, with the inclusion of three species. New taxonomic hypotheses were achieved through the morphological analysis of about 250 specimens allied to the type materials of L. rivorum Guenée, 1852, L. pampa Schaus, 1894 stat. rev. and Neleucania multistria Köhler, 1947 stat. rev., the last two being resurrected from synonymy with L. rivorum and Dargida lithophilus (Butler, 1882), respectively. Both the habitus and morphology of the genitalia support the transfer of Neleucania multistria to Leucania, comb. nov. Lectotypes for L. rivorum and L. pampa are designated to ensure nomenclatural stability and recognizability of these taxa. Additionally, the similar rust-colored species Leucania chejela (Schaus, 1921) is compared with species of the rivorum species-group, and is recorded from South America for the first time.. All species of the rivorum group are re-described, with high-resolution images of taxonomic characters of the adults (head, patagium, and male and female genitalia) and updated distributional maps presented.