Revisional Notes on the Cloud Forest Butterfly Genus Oxeoschistus Butler in Central America (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae: Satyrinae)

T W Pyrcz,B Wacławik,P Boyer,A Zubek,I Nakamura,K Florczyk

doi:10.1007/s13744-019-00757-7

T W Pyrcz, B Wacławik + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.1007/s13744-019-00757-7

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Abstract

So far, six species of Oxeoschistus Butler, including its junior synonym Dioriste Thieme, were listed from Central America, with five of them from Costa Rica alone, which appears to represent the highest regional diversity of this Neotropical montane butterfly genus. Our research based on field work, morphological studies and barcode analysis proved that one record is a misunderstanding perpetuated in scientific literature for over a century: Oxeoschistus cothonides Grose-Smith is identified here as an individual form of the female of O. cothon Salvin. The presence of Oxeoschistus tauropolis (Westwood) in Costa Rica, subject to some controversy, is confirmed, and a new local subspecies is described from Costa Rica, O. tauropolis mitsuko Pyrcz & Nakamura n. ssp. Specific status of O. euriphyle Butler is reinstated based on morphological and molecular data. A new subspecies O. hilara lempira Pyrcz n. ssp. is described from Honduras. O. puerta submaculatus Butler is reported for the first time from the Darién region on the Panama–Colombia border. Species relationships are preliminarily evaluated based on COI data concluding, among others, that O. hilara and O. euriphyle are less closely related than previously assumed. Altitudinal and distributional data are revised, and ecological and behavioural information of all the species of Central American Oxeoschistus is provided.

Highlights

Most groups of Neotropical montane Lepidoptera are heavily underrepresented in Central American mountains compared to the Andes (Pyrcz & Viloria 2012)
The area sampled for Pronophilina and Oxeoschistus in Costa Rica was situated in the Cerro de la Muerte region in the western Cordillera de Talamanca, with transects established between La Georgina and División, División and Santa Eduviges, La Georgina and Cerro Buenavista in the Pacific Conservation Area
As a result of this study, the number of species of the genus Oxeoschistus known from Costa Rica was reduced from five to four, and from Panama to three, because the presence of O. tauropolis in Panama is very unlikely in the light of our experience

Summary

Introduction

Most groups of Neotropical montane Lepidoptera are heavily underrepresented in Central American mountains compared to the Andes (Pyrcz & Viloria 2012). This subtribe is represented in the mountains of Costa Rica, in the Meseta Central and the Cordillera de Talamanca that extends into Panama, by a modest 19 species (DeVries 1987), whereas in some Andean mountain ranges and countries the species richness is several orders of magnitudes higher (Pyrcz & Viloria 2012) This is not due to area effect as local counts along altitudinal gradients in some Andean localities give figures around or above 100 species (Pyrcz 2010). The most probable pathway for colonization of Costa Rican and Guatemalan mountains by southern elements was opened with the Pleistocenic Ice Ages in the process of slow range expansion thanks to the formation of cloud forest ecological corridors Such corridors were apparently short lasting or not solid enough, and generally allowed the colonization of Central America only by montane species occurring in lower altitudinal strata. Others, such as Pedaliodes, are extremely underrepresented, as the genus comprises well over 250 species in the Andes, but only seven in Central America (an overall proportion of 0.02)

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