Amblyteria Grishin, new subgenus

http://zoobank.org/ C1F98F8D-C366-4065-9317-EA039D15CB22

Type species. Goniloba exoteria Herrich-Schäffer, 1869 .

Definition. A prominent clade within Amblyscirtes Scudder, 1872 (type species Hesperia vialis W. H. Edwards, 1862) without a name (Fig. 11, 12). Keys to N.2.2, 6, 8, or 22 in Evans (1955). Phenotypically diverse lineage of species that differs from its relatives by the following combination of characters: males either with stigma long, narrow and rather straight, hindwing below with many small white spots in some species, and size small (forewing length mostly <15mm), or if larger, then forewing pale spot in cell M 1 - M 2 strongly offset towards outer margin; or with brands at the base of vein CuA 2, and brands either very conspicuous on bronze-colored wings, or wings black, head orange and fringes not orange but pale. Due to this pronounced phenotypic variation, the subgenus is best defined by DNA characters. A combination of the following base pairs in the standard DNA COI barcode region (658 bp) is diagnostic: T548C, A550T (these two characters are synapomorphic), 343(not G as in Stomyles), T346T(not C as in Stomyles), T553T(not A as in the nominal subgenus), and A637A(not T as in Stomyles).

Etymology. The name is a feminine noun in the nominative singular, a fusion of the type species name epithets: Amby [scirtes] + [exo] teria.

Species included. Amblyscirtes elissa Godman, [1900], Pamphila oslari Skinner, 1899, Amblyscirtes brocki Freeman, 1992, Goniloba exoteria Herrich-Schäffer, 1869, and Pamphila phylace Edwards, 1878 .

Parent taxon. Genus Amblyscirtes Scudder, 1872 .

Assignment of species to subgenera. With the description of Amblyteria subgen. n., we consider that the genus Amblyscirtes consists of 4 subgenera (Fig. 12). Subgenus Stomyles Scudder, 1872 (Eastern US clade) consists of A. carolina (Skinner, 1892), A. reversa F. Jones, 1926, A. aesculapius (Fabricius, 1793), and A. hegon (Scudder, 1863) . Subgenus Mastor Godman, [1900] (Southern clade) consists of A. fimbriata (Plötz, 1882) (the only USA species), A. anubis (Godman, 1900), A. novimmaculatus A. Warren, 1998, A. raphaeli H. Freeman, 1973, A. patriciae (E. Bell, 1959), and A. folia Godman, 1900 . Names of type species are underlined. Other Amblyscirtes species (Mielke 2005; Pelham 2008) not mentioned here belong to the nominal subgenus.

Comment. A surprising result is that two very similar-looking species A. (Amblyteria) phylace and A. (Mastor) fimbriata are not each other's closest relatives and belong to different subgenera (Fig. 12).