Parasa Moore, [1860]

Singh, Navneet, Ahmad, Jalil, Chandra, Kailash & Solovyev, Alexey V., 2021, A new species of the genus Thespea Solovyev and four newly recorded species of Limacodidae from India (Lepidoptera: Zygaenoidea), Zootaxa 4927 (1), pp. 123-132 : 125-126

Genus Parasa Moore, [1860] in Horsfield & Moore ([1860])

Parasa Moore, [1860] : 413.

Type species. Neaera chloris Herrich-Schäffer, 1854 (subsequently designated by Fletcher & Nye 1982) (TL: “Amer. mer.”).

Distribution. Widely distributed from Far East Russia, China, Japan, Korea, India to Philippines; Middle East, Africa, Madagascar ( Solovyev 2014), North and South America.

Diagnosis. The monophyly of all the nine groups listed here below under taxonomic notes is well supported ( Solovyev 2014), but a robust definition of the genus is still lacking. Currently, the genus Parasa needs a thorough revision as it includes Asian, African, Neotropical and Nearctic species, and the green colour on the wings or body cannot be reliably used as an indicative character because it is also exhibited by few other limacodid genera.

Taxonomic notes. A recent and important publication on the taxonomy of this genus was proposed by Solovyev & Witt (2009), where 13 monophyletic lineages were identified, but with an indication that the study was preliminary. Furthermore, Solovyev (2014) provisionally divided the genus Parasa into nine species groups: i) the lepida species group (20 species), ii) the consocia species group (seven species), iii) the sinica species group (three species), iv) the darma species group (three species), v) the ananii species group (13 species), vi) the sagittata species group (one species), vii) the dulcis species group (one species), viii) the inexpectata species group (one species and two subspecies), and ix) the metaphaea species group (one species).