Hagnagora ephestris (Felder & Rogenhofer, 1875)

Brehm, Gunnar, 2015, Three new species of Hagnagora Druce, 1885 (Lepidoptera, Geometridae, Larentiinae) from Ecuador and Costa Rica and a concise revision of the genus, ZooKeys 537, pp. 131-156 : 146

Taxon classification Animalia Lepidoptera Geometridae

Hagnagora ephestris (Felder & Rogenhofer, 1875) Fig. 30

Type locality.

[Colombia], Bogota.

Remarks.

Felder & Rogenhofer described this species from Colombia. It closely resembles Hagnagora discordata and Hagnagora luteoradiata . Parsons et al. (1999) put luteoradiata in synonymy with ephestris , but freshly collected material from Costa Rica and Ecuador shows that luteoradiata consistently lacks yellow blotches on the hindwing. It appears therefore to be more likely that ephestris is a junior synonym of discordata , and an increased knowledge of COI sequences could help to solve this question. Given the current state of knowledge, it appears to be the most appropriate solution to revive luteoradiata from synonymy and to treat the other two taxa as full species.

Distribution.

Colombia.

Diagnosis.

Both ephestris and discordata show a pronounced yellow blotch on the hindwings that is absent in luteoradiata . Different from discordata , the yellow transversal band on the forewing of Hagnagora ephestris reaches the outer margin of the wing. Moreover, the band is broader than in discordata , whereas the yellow field of the hindwing is narrower, particularly in the proximate half of the wing.