Egeona Grishin, new subgenus

http://zoobank.org/ BFF752DF-DA63-4043-91F6-34E579F956F8

Type species. Taxila egeon Westwood, 1851 .

Definition. This is the second new subgenus of Dodona Hewitson, 1861 (type species Melitaea durga Kollar, 1844) (see above for discussions) (Fig. 5 green) that is sister to the nominal subgenus (Fig. 5 magenta). COI barcodes between these sister taxa differ by 7.3% (48 bp). This new subgenus differs from its relatives by the following combination of characters: the phallus is usually longer and stronger curved, the phallobase is straighter and the connection between the phallus and phallobase is less bent; males have brown wings with orange spots and stripes above (four stripes on the forewing: the apical stripe—which is sometimes vestigial—not merged with the submarginal stripe) but without white areas and stripes characteristics of Balonca and with wings and orange spots less round and spots less uniform than in the subgenus Dodona, and differs from several similar-looking species of Balonca either by more extensive orange coloration, especially of the ventral side, or by not having brown framing on the basal side of pale hindwing streaks. For genitalia illustrations of some representative species in the new subgenus, see Wu et al. (2018). In DNA, a combination of the following characters is diagnostic in the nuclear genome: cne3991.3.1:T363C, cne3991.3.1:T384C, cne9860.2.4:C37T, cne 1134.1.1:A336G, cne3461.1.15:C2524A; and in COI barcode: T127A or T463C, A202C or T206C, T479T, T484T, T571C or T574A, T533T.

Etymology. The name is formed from the name of the type species and is a feminine noun in the nominative singular.

Species included. The type species (i.e., Taxila egeon Westwood, 1851), Dodona adonira Hewitson, 1866, Dodona chrysapha Fruhstorfer, 1910, Dodona eugenes H. Bates, 1867, Dodona formosana Matsumura, 1919, Dodona hoenei Forster, 1951, Dodona maculosa Leech, 1890, Dodona phuongi Monastyrskii & Devyatkin, 2000, Dodona speciosa Monastyrskii & Devyatkin, 2000, and Dodona windu Fruhstorfer, 1894, including their subspecies and synonyms.

Parent taxon. Genus Dodona Hewitson, 1861 .