Chondrolepis ducarmei Larsen & Congdon

Larsen, Torben B., 2012, The genus Ampittia in Africa with the description of a new species (Hesperiinae; Aeromachini) and three new species in the genera Andronymus and Chondrolepis (Hesperiinae, incertae sedis) (Lepidoptera; Hesperiidae), Zootaxa 3322, pp. 49-62 : 59-60

Chondrolepis ducarmei Larsen & Congdon sp. nov.

Background: This new species was known only from the holotype collected in the North Kivu Province in the DRC, where C. niveicornis , C. cynthia , and C. leggei are also found, but while the manuscript was being reviewed two additional males were collected some 50 km further north. It can immediately be recognized by its unusually extensive hyaline forewing spotting in an ochreous-orange that is deeper than in any other known species, as well as by the orange cilia. It was recognized on the spot as new species when first seen by Collins in the R. Ducarme collection a few years ago.

Description: Forewing of the male holotype 16.5 mm. The upperside of the antenna is white on its outer twothirds, chequered with brown in the basal third. The upperside ground-colour is a uniform, rather warm brown with hyaline spots of a deep ochreous-orange that are larger than in any other Chondrolepis . The fused cell-spots of the male forewing take up fully half the cell, much more than in any other species. The spot in space 2 is huge, taking up half the width of the entire space. The spot in 3 is also larger than usual and all spots are fused to a single discal patch that is hardly broken up by the veins. The non-hyaline, almost quadrate spot in 1b is also larger than usual. Despite this, there are only two subapical spots of modest size, with the upper spot much smaller than the lower. The hindwing is brown as the forewing, slightly lightened in the cell and discal area. The cilia of both wings is orange, especially clear on the hindwing tornus (grey or blackish in all other species). The forewing underside has the same hyaline spotting as the upperside, with no trace of a third subapical spot. The costa and subapical area is cinnamon with darker submarginal and marginal spots in spaces 6 to 9. The rest of the wing is grey with the central area of space 1b having a white patch that is much larger than the spot on the upperside. The hindwing is cinnamon with ill-defined darker brown markings in the basal area, the cell, and the postdiscal area, as well as rather small brown marginal spots in all interspaces. The most prominent is a diffuse, irregular postdiscal wedge, narrowing from space 1c to 4. A few of the dark scales have a violet tinge.

Male genitalia: The genitalia conform fully with the normal structure and size of this homogeneous genus but with a number of distinctive features. It would almost be possible to assemble a very similar preparation by taking bits and pieces from other species. They are quite large for the genus. The uncus is rather short compared with the tegumen. The gnathos branches are short and not strongly spined. The shoulders of the tegumen are pointed as in C. leggei (de Jong 1986) but the tegumen/uncus structure is quite different, lacking the pseudotegumen and the strong spines on the lateral gnathos processes of that species. The valves are hardly asymmetrical and are characterized by the distal end of the cucullus ending as a chitinized hook. The upper lobe of the cucullus is more rounded than usual on both valves (usually one of the strongest elements of asymmetry). The scaphium is visible under the uncus and is rather short. Overall, the differences in colour pattern are stronger than the genitalia (figure 11).

Holotype: 1 3 DRC, Bunyatenge, North Kivu, 1,800 m, 24.iv.1996 (00°16'S 28°53'E) (genitalia prep. tbl BJI; to be placed in MRAC).

Paratypes: 2 3 DRC, Kirima, North Kivu, 1.700 m (00°11'N 29°06'E) (one in coll. ABRI, one in coll. Ducarme).

Diagnosis: It is impossible to confuse C. ducarmei with any other African skipper. We would not have hesitated to describe it on the basis of a single male, especially since the genitalia are also distinctive, but two additional identical males were found while the manuscript was in press. The very large forewing discal spots, their deep ochreous tone, the tone of the hindwing underside, and the male genitalia are all unique for the genus.

Range, habitat, and habits: With just three males to hand, not much can be said about the species. The localities are in partly degraded submontane woodland of the Mitumba Mountains, which is fairly typical habitat for the genus as a whole. The species was collected both just north and south of the Equator and thus straddles both hemispheres! The submontane forests in the area are mostly isolated from each other by lowlands and are becoming increasingly isolated through clearing of forest for agriculture and fuel. They have been poorly researched for butterflies and C. ducarmei may well turn up elsewhere in the area, but being so distinctive it is probably genuinely local and rare. Unfortunately the security situation is such that additional exploration is difficult.

Etymology: This fine skipper is named in honour of Robert Ducarme, a long-term Belgian resident of the Kivu Province, DRC who has amassed and catalogued a huge collection of local butterflies. Many new interesting species were donated to the African Butterfly Research Institute (ABRI), Nairobi and to the Royal Africa Museum (MRAC), Tervuren. Jacques Hecq has described a number of new Nymphalidae in the collection. Another of his amazing captures is Pilodeudorix [ Diopetes ] ducarmei ( Collins & Larsen 1998), also from Kivu, the only wholly brown species in the Diopetes section of the Hypolycaenini ; Cooksonia ginettae ( Collins & Larsen 2008) , named after Mrs. Ducarme was one of the biogeographically most surprising species we ever had to deal with, being found some 2,000 km north of its closest relative. Many new Lycaenidae taxa were described in a number of generic revisions by M. Libert, not least in the elusive genus Pseudaletis ( Libert 2007) (all Lycaenidae ).