Lapaeumides, OITICICA, 1955

Moraes, Simeão De Souza & Duarte, Marcelo, 2014, Phylogeny of Neotropical Castniinae (Lepidoptera: Cossoidea: Castniidae): testing the hypothesis of the mimics as a monophyletic group and implications for the arrangement of the genera, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 170 (2), pp. 362-399 : 394

LAPAEUMIDES OITICICA, 1955 SYN. NOV.

Type species

Papilio mimon Hübner, [1823]

Included species

Synpalamides phalaris ( Fabricius, 1793) , Synpalamides amycus (Cramer [1779]) (Feschaeria) comb. nov., Synpalamides ctesiphon (Hübner, [1820]) (Lapaeumides) comb. nov., Synpalamides fabricii ( Swainson, 1823) (Hista) comb. nov., Synpalamides actor ( Dalman, 1824) (Lapaeumides) comb. nov., Synpalamides zerynthia ( Gray, 1838) (Lapaeumides) comb. nov., Synpalamides hegemon ( Kollar, 1839) (Hista) comb. nov., Synpalamides chelone ( Hopffer, 1856) , Synpalamides orestes ( Walker, 1854) , Synpalamides rubrophalaris ( Houlbert, 1917) , and Synpalamides escalantei ( Miller, 1976) .

Comments

This arrangement was suggested in a previous report ( Moraes et al., 2010), but could not be supported because of the limited taxa sampling, particularly for species that were earlier included in the genus Lapaeumides . Now, with a more complete sampling, a number of synapomorphic characters agree with this arrangement: (i) subapical band on forewing as a triangle (15: 3); (ii) ventral margin of valva oblique (53: 1); (iii) bulla seminalis globular (88: 2); and (iv) bulla seminalis with sclerotized plates (90: 1).

The wing pattern is similar in all species, except for S. amycus ( Fig. 32). Moreover, the wing pattern is so similar in S. hegemon and S. zerynthia that we wonder why no one has previously attempted to assess the morphology of these two species and to synonymize them.