Nemophora caerulea Liao, Hirowatari & Huang, 2023

Liao, Cheng-Qing, Hirowatari, Toshiya, Yagi, Sadahisa, Wang, Min, Wang, Xing & Huang, Guo-Hua, 2023, The fauna of the family Adelidae (Insecta, Lepidoptera, Adeloidea) from China, Zootaxa 5348 (1), pp. 1-152 : 42-43

(41) Nemophora caerulea Liao, Hirowatari & Huang , sp. nov.

(Plates V-3, XXV-1)

LSID urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:0258BB69-6A56-42EB-B50C-3A4A6EDF70F4

Diagnosis. This species differs from its congeners by the blue color of the forewing with bright metallic luster, while green in N. chrysoprasias and brass in N. rubrofascia . In addition, this species is also similar to N. caeruliantenna sp. nov., but can be distinguished by the following characters: the forewing ground color is entirely dark blue, while bluish-green in N. caeruliantenna sp. nov.; the forewing central fasciae are orange yellowish, while orange reddish in N. caeruliantenna sp. nov.; and the hindwing is light brown in the basal half and black in the apical half, while entirely light brown in N. caeruliantenna sp. nov.

Description. Female. Forewing about 9.5 mm; wing expanse about 20.7 mm.

Vertex densely covered with orange yellowish hairs; face with orange scales and hairs. Eyes small, far away to each other dorsally; eye size index about 0.75. Labial palpus long, densely covered with yellow hairs; galeae with yellow scales laterally. Antenna slightly longer than forewing length; basal 1/4 covered with broader black scales mixed with some orange reddish scales basally; subsequent several flagellums black. Legs yellow to light brown, except apical tibiae and tarsi black. Thoracic dorsum and tegula dark blue, with blight metallic luster. Forewing lanceolate, relatively broad, length about 2.6 × width; ground color dark blue, the same as thorax, with blight metallic luster; a broad transverse central fascia orange yellowish, placed from basal 1/4 to 1/2 and bordered with a pair of narrow black-margined blue bands on both sides; subapical area with shining bright matellic luster; cilia dark blue with blight metallic luster. Hindwing light brown in basal half and black in apical half; cilia dark brown to black. Abdomen black.

Male. Unknown.

Female genitalia. Ovipositor pointed, with a barb-like tooth ventroposteriorly. Apophyses posteriores and anteriores of subequal in length, about 2.3 times of 7th tergite. Vestibulum membranous, a pair of vestibular lamellae near attachment point of guy wire. Bursa copulatrix very large, membranous.

Holotype. [Hainan] ♀, Jianfengling near Resort Hotel (900 m), Ledong Li Autonomous County, 2004.V.21, M. Wang leg. ( HUNAU).

Etymology. The specific epithet is derived from the Latin word caeruleus (blue), referring to its forewing ground color of blue with light metallic luster.

Distribution. China (Hainan).

Remarks. This species occurs in May and November.

One DNA barcode of N. caerulea sp. nov. (SaY709) is generated and the closest sequences are two specimens of N. chrysoprasias from China (pairwise distances: 0.058, 0.063). In addition, the phylogenetic analysis also shows that these two species formed a clade with a relatively high bootstrap value (81%).