Oenomaus cyanovenata ( D'Abrera )

Faynel, Christophe, Busby, Robert C. & Robbins, Robert K., 2012, Review of the species level taxonomy of the neotropical butterfly genus Oenomaus (Lycaenidae, Theclinae, Eumaeini), ZooKeys 222, pp. 11-45 : 23-25

Oenomaus cyanovenata ( D'Abrera)

Distribution, habitat, and remarks.

A species of very wet lowland forest, it has been recorded from Costa Rica, Panama, French Guiana, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Brazil (PA, AM). The previous record for Brazil (SC) was incorrect; this specimen is now treated as Oenomaus moseri .

New material examined.

Costa Rica.- 1♂: Guápiles, 850 ft. alt., Schaus and Barnes coll., Genitalia 1992: 76♂ R.K. Robbins (USNM); 2♀: Area de Conservación Guanacaste, voucher: D.H. Janzen & W. Hallwachs 97-SRNP-62841.1, Genitalia 2009: 30♀ R.K. Robbins (USNM) (Fig. 16); 97-SRNP-6283. Panama.- 1♂: Colón, Piña, 100 m, 9.IV.1971, H.L. King, genitalia slide/vial #4710, prep. S.S. Nicolay (USNM). French Guiana.- 3♀: Roura, Route de Kaw - PK 16, 18.VII.2004, C. Faynel leg., CF-LYC-053 (CF); Roura, Route de Kaw, 26.I.2005, J.Y. Gallard leg., gen. prep. CF n°441, CF-LYC-055 (CF) (Fig. 17); Roura, Route de Kaw - PK 8, 20.XII.2001, J.Y. Gallard leg., CF-LYC-056 (CF). Brazil.- 3♀: PA, Santo Antônio do Tauá, Reserva Sonho Azul, 1°15'S, 48°03'W, 12.VI.2009,P. & J. Jauffret leg., CF-LYC-059 (CF); PA, Santo Antônio do Tauá, Reserva Sonho Azul, 1°15'S, 48°03'W, 3.VIII.2009,P. & J. Jauffret leg., CF-LYC-060 (CF); PA, Santo Antônio do Tauá, Reserva Sonho Azul, 1°15'S, 48°03'W, 8.V.2009,P. & J. Jauffret leg., CF-LYC-061 (CF).

Intraspecific variation.

Females from French Guiana and Brazil, Pará (Fig. 17) are uniformly brown on the dorsal wing surface while the female from Costa Rica (Fig. 16) has the basal parts of both wings blue. Their genitalia, however, are uniform. Additionally, their COI DNA sequences are similar. This geographic variability is similar to that in Oenomaus taua .

Behavior/biology.

Two females were reared in Costa Rica (97-SRNP-62841.1 and 97-SRNP-6283) from Guatteria verrucosa R.E. Fr. ( Annonaceae ) (adult vouchers in USNM). Details of the rearing records along with images of the immatures can be found in Janzen and Hallwachs (2012).

Female.

Females of this species (Figs 16, 17, 32, 33) have the same ventral wing pattern as males, occur at the same localities, and have similar COI DNA sequences. A female paratype of Oenomaus cyanovenata from Pará, Brazil was designated and illustrated in D’Abrera (1995) without definitive supporting evidence. This female has a different dorsal wing pattern than the female from Pará that we have associated with the male. We are skeptical of the biological validity of this paratype designation.

COI DNA sequence.

Four males and seven females from French Guiana and Brazil, Pará were barcoded. One male (CF-LYC-046) is 6.7% divergent from the other three males, but its sequence is identical with that from a male of Oenomaus magnus (CF-LYC-020). Potential explanations for this result range from contamination to biologically significant, but until we have additional information, we omit this male from the following results. Divergence among the 10 other specimens of Oenomaus cyanovenata was 0.1%. The reared females from Costa Rica, which were barcoded in another project, are 0.4% divergent from the South American specimens.