Divana, MILLER, 1982

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 : 393-394

DIVANA MILLER, 1982 SYN. NOV.

Type species

Papilio licus Drury, 1773 Included species

Telchin licus (Drury, 1773) , Telchin syphax ( Fabricius, 1775) , Telchin evalthe ( Fabricius, 1775) (Xanthocastnia) comb. nov., Telchin atymnius ( Dalman, 1824) , Telchin hubneri ( Gray, 1838) (Geyeria) comb. nov., Telchin cacica (Herrich-Schäffer, [1854]) (Amauta) comb. nov., Telchin papilionaris (Walker, [1865]) (Amauta) comb. nov., Telchin diva (Butler, 1870) (Divana) comb. nov., Telchin hodeei ( Oberthür, 1881) (Amauta) comb. nov., Telchin gramivora ( Schaus, 1896) (Frostetola) comb. nov., and Telchin ambatensis ( Houlbert, 1917) (Amauta) comb. nov.

Comments

The new composition of Telchin now includes three formerly monotypic genera. This taxonomic arrangement is the best supported in number of synapomorphies: (i) distal part of aedeagus enlarged (28: 1); (ii) contour of subterminal part of aedeagus indented or irregular (29: 1); (iii) sacculus directed posteriorly (46: 1); (iv) sacculus digitiform (48: 2); (iv) area between sacculus and valvula recessed (53: 3); (v) vinculum rectangular (60: 2); (vi) length of posterior arm of gnathos (80: 0); (vii) spiral portion of ductus bursae with a sclerotized plate (102: 0); (viii) median region of female eighth tergite more sclerotized (105: 0); and (ix) antrum bloated (113: 0).

In contrast to T. evalthe ( Fig. 17), which shares a similar wing pattern with other Telchin species , T. gramivora ( Fig. 14) was probably assigned to a monotypic genus because of its uncommon semitranslucent wing pattern; whereas T. diva ( Fig. 16) has an uncommon wing pattern somewhat resembling some species of Agrias Doubleday, 1844 (Nymphalidae) . Telchin hubneri ( Fig. 15), formerly included in Geyeria , shares with the species originally included in Telchin some elements of the wing pattern, and especially the general morphology of the male and female genitalia; however, the extremely diverse wing patterns in this lineage constitute only minor differences compared with the astonishing morphological congruence.

The genus contains the T. licus complex, including T. licus , T atymnius , and T. syphax . This group has the largest number of subspecies: 12 for T. licus and seven for T. atymnius . These were erected based only on the type locality and slight differences in the wing pattern, without any further investigations or compilation of geographical data in order to establish the true range of distribution for the different populations. The morphological study of Moraes & Duarte (2009) revealed only a few differences among the species. The molecular study of Silva-Brandão et al. (2012) was the first attempt to identify possibly cryptic taxa and to validate some subspecies.