Eois beebei Fletcher, 1952

Doan, Lydia M., Miller, James S., Brown, John W., Forister, Matthew L. & Dyer, Lee A., 2024, Two new species of the hyperdiverse geometrid moth genus Eois (Lepidoptera, Geometridae, Larentiinae) from Ecuador, with descriptions of early stages, ZooKeys 1192, pp. 111-140 : 111

Eois beebei Fletcher, 1952 stat. rev.

Figs 15 , 16

Racheospila beebei Fletcher, 1952: 101.

Eois beebei : Parsons et al. 1999: 279; Brehm et al. 2011: 1106.

Type material examined.

Holotype ♂, Venezuela, Rancho Grande near Maracay, W. Beebe, No. 481604 (NHMUK).

Remarks and diagnosis.

Fletcher (1952) described this species from a single male collected by William Beebe at Rancho Grande (now known as Henri Pittier National Park), in the Venezuelan Costal Range, an historically well-known collecting locality. Fletcher’s description is somewhat outdated, as is his rather crude drawing of the male genitalia. The species was treated as a synonym of E. olivacea by Parsons et al. (1999), without the benefit of a comparison of the genitalia with those of the latter.

As in many members of Group I, the phallus of E. beebei has a large, conspicuous, scobinate plate with a saw-toothed edge situated near the distal end of the vesica, but lacks long cornuti (Fig. 16 ). The species can be distinguished from E. olivacea by the shorter and narrower valvae, and from E. pseudolivacea by the shorter lacina.

Redescription.

Male. Head: Frons and vertex pale pinkish buff with distinct white bar between bases of antennae; labial palpus pale pinkish buff, length~ 0.5 diameter of compound eye; pectinations of antenna ~ 4 × as long as the diameter of the shaft. Thorax: Pale olive; forewing ground color pale olive, anterior 0.5 irrorate with pale grayish brown, costa lightly irrorated with cream-brown, postmedial fascia white, discal spot fuscous. Fringe chalcedony yellow. Forewing undersurface white, glossy; discal spot minute. Abdomen: Pale olive, each segment edged posteriorly with white. Male genitalia (Fig. 16 ) with top of tegumen broadly rounded; lacina supporting long androconial scales; valva subrectangular with distinct sacculus along venter of basal 0.5. Phallus with weakly sclerotized patch near apex; vesica with two scobinate plates in apical 0.5, lacking elongate cornuti.

Female. Unknown.

Distribution and biology.

Known only from the type locality.

Figures

Figures 15, 16. Eois beebei 15 holotype upperside (NHMUK) 16 male genitalia (NHMUK).