Mnasilus guianae Lindsey, 1925

Zhang, Jing, Cong, Qian, Shen, Jinhui & Grishin, Nick V., 2022, Taxonomic changes suggested by the genomic analysis of Hesperiidae (Lepidoptera), Insecta Mundi 2022 (921), pp. 1-135 : 75

Mnasilus guianae Lindsey, 1925 is a junior subjective synonym of Papias amyrna ( Mabille, 1891)

Originally named in the genus Mnasilus Godman, 1900 (type species Mnasilus penicillatus Godman, 1900 , a junior subjective synonym of Pamphila allubita Butler, 1877 ), Mnasilus guianae Lindsey, 1925 (type locality Guyana: Georgetown) was placed in the genus Nastra Evans, 1955 (type species Hesperia lherminier Latreille, [1824] ) by Evans (1955), who suggested that it may even be a subspecies of Nastra neamathla (Skinner and Williams, 1923) (type locality USA: Florida) due to similarities in genitalia. However, we find that genitalia of guianae are much more similar to those of P. allubita , that N. neamathla , e. g. valva is deeply bilobed terminally, not indented as in N. neamathla . Moreover, a specimen from Guyana in AMNH collection identified as M. guianae following genitalic inspection (NVG-19043B01), was placed within the Papias [formerly Mnasilus ] allubita clade, far removed from Nastra , and next to the lectotype of Pamphila amyrna Mabille, 1891 (type locality Venezuela) ( Fig. 14 ). Both guianae and Pamphila amyrna come from neighboring countries, are phenotypically similar to each other and to P. allubita , including their genitalia, but lack the diagnostic for P. allubita tuft of long scales by forewing inner margin above ( Evans 1955). The COI barcodes of Pamphila amyrna lectotype and the guianae specimen NVG-19043B01 differ by only 0.3% (2 bp). For these reasons, we place Mnasilus guianae Lindsey, 1925 in the genus Papias ( Mnasilus being its junior subjective synonym) and suggest that it is conspecific with Papias amyrna ( Mabille, 1891) .

Figures

Figure 14. Genomic tree of Moncina, part 2. See Fig. 1 legend for notations.