On January 16th, our dear colleague and distinguished entomologist Enrique García-Barros Saura passed away at the age of 66. All of us who knew him, and especially those of us who cultivated his friendship, hold an indelible memory of his worth, his scientific and intellectual excellence, and above all, his humanity. We never wished to write this obituary, the words of which we still struggle to comprehend and accept, and we dare to publish it only as a tribute to his memory and to his person.

Elachista dimorphella sp. nov. , the first known species with a sexually dimorphic wing pattern of the large subgenus Aphelosetia of the genus Elachista is described. The male is dark grey with an indistinct forewing pattern, the female yellowish white, variably with a yellow to honey-yellow pattern and some brown scales. The male and female were associated by their DNA barcodes that cluster together with nearly no variation within the cluster. Based on original type material or other material from the vicinity of the type locality, and/or barcode data, we also characterise previously unknown or misinterpreted species or sexes of close relatives of E. dimorphella : male of E. amseli Rebel, 1933, a species with unclear status; the previously unknown male of E. constitella Frey, 1859, and female of E. maculata Parenti, 1978. The male of E. maculata has widely but erroneously been considered to be E. constitella .

Early stages of the tineid genus Tenaga Clemens, 1862 are reported for the first time, for T. nigripunctella (Haworth, 1828). Its larvae were found within the shells of dead Garden Snails Cornu aspersum (Müller, 1774), feeding on the dried body tissues. Larvae of the moth have been found, but not reared, among a range of detritus substrates, with traces of likely feeding observed on dry mouse droppings, and in a dead Western Honeybee Apis mellifera Linnaeus, 1758. Adults of the species have been seen annually since 2013 in a small area of Dorset, England. Historical and modern occurrences in Great Britain (until 1934) and country records elsewhere are reviewed, with new records reported for Lebanon and Syria. Two live larvae have been found within dead snail shells, one reared to the adult stage, the other was identified from its DNA barcode. Only a single COI-5P haplotype is known worldwide and ours is the fourth known DNA sequence. The taxonomic placement of the genus Tenaga , containing only two closely related species, sometimes placed in the family Meessiidae, is also discussed.

Colourful and morphologically complex traits can be used to deflect predators’ attacks to a part of a prey’s body that is less vulnerable. This is the case of the so-called false head (FH) of some butterfly species, in which the posterior end of the hindwings of individuals perching with closed wings resembles a butterfly’s head. Recently, it was shown that the FH of Callophrys xami (Reakirt, 1867) females also plays a role in sexual selection. Specifically, females with an experimentally ablated FH received larger ejaculates, suggesting that males exert postcopulatory (cryptic) choice in favour of these females, perhaps because they have shown to be able to deflect predator attacks. Here, we tested experimentally whether C. xami females also show a preference for males with ablated FH. In our paired experiment, we presented virgin females either with a male with the FH ablated or with a male with the FH intact. We compared the probability of mating, copula duration and the number of eggs laid by the females two days after mating. We did not find evidence of female choice in relation to the presence/absence of FH in the males. Males with ablated FH were as likely to mate as control males. Copula duration and number of eggs laid were also very similar in females mated with either males with the FH ablated or intact. We suggest that the structure of the courtship behaviour of this butterfly could explain why males use the FH in their choice of mate, while females apparently do not.

In butterflies, interspecific and intersexual variation in wing design morphology modifies aerodynamic efficiency and individuals’ flight costs. Wing design involves traits like wing shape and size, which determine flight performance and behavioral ability, which determine individuals’ flight performance and behavioural capacity under their ecological and reproductive requirements. In this context, evolutionary adjustments in wing shape are expected to be adaptive responses to specific flight requirements that allow acrobatic maneuvers to evade predators, for females reduce the costs of takeoff and flight maintenance linked to the additional weight of eggs and ovarioles, or for males improve flight efficiency during costly and long courtship displays. Here, the intra- and interspecific variation in wing shape of butterflies in the genus Heliconius Kluk, 1780. was analyzed using geometric morphometrics techniques, as well as its association with i) intersexual differences in flight requirements, ii) mating system, and iii) the presence of co-mimic pairs. The results highlight the relevance of sexual selection associated with mating systems and life history traits as the predominant force that promotes the patterns of sexual dimorphism in wing shape observed in Heliconius. In this context, both sexes exhibit contrasting wing shapes according to the mating strategies (i.e. pupal mating vs courtship species). However, there are also remarkable intersexual wing shape differences, potentially associated with the pressures that impose egg production on females. Additionally, Heliconius species that form co-mimic pairs also show a strong wing shape convergence despite belonging to different subclades. The results highlight the complexity of traits involved in the evolutionary designs of wings in Lepidoptera.

The present study records Morophaga formosana Robinson, 1986 and describes M. hahajimanasp. nov. from the Ogasawara Islands of Japan. This is the first record of this genus Morophaga Herrich-Schäffer, 1853 (Tineidae) from the Oceanian region. Photographs of adult specimens, wing veins, genitalia, and larval biology are presented. We have constructed a preliminary phylogenetic tree based on cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI-5P) DNA barcode sequences, including those of some Scardiinae species.

Tineidae Latreille, 1810 includes about 119 species in Italy. Despite their economic and ecological importance, this family remains poorly studied in peninsular Italy, primarily due to taxonomic impediment. The aims of this paper were to improve molecular reference libraries to overcome the taxonomic impediment and to increase the knowledge of Tineidae in South Italian forests. The examined material was collected from the southernmost tip of peninsular Italy. A total of 85 specimens were DNA barcoded, recovering 74 sequences and 27 Barcode Index Numbers of which three are new to the Barcode of Life Data system. 66 specimens were assigned to 24 species. 67% of these identified species represent new records for parts of Italy or for the entire country. Notably, Pelecystola fraudulentella (Zeller, 1852) is new for Italy, while Haplotinea insectella (Fabricius, 1794), Reisserita relicinella (Herrich-Schäffer, 1853), Stenoptinea cyaneimarmorella (Millière, 1854), Monopis neglecta Šumpich & Liška, 2011, and Triaxomera fulvimitrella (Sodoffsky, 1830) are new for South Italy. Additionally, 10 species are new for the Calabria region. The most interesting cases concern eight specimens belonging to the genera Nemapogon Schrank, 1802 and Neurothaumasia Le Marchand, 1934. These specimens exhibited genetic distance ranging of 3.74% and 6.73% respectively from their nearest neighbors and morphology of genitalia cannot help to assign them to a known species. Further taxonomic studies are needed to ascertain their taxonomy.

Life history traits of the Idas Blue (Plebejus idas (Linnaeus, 1761)) were studied at two sites in the northern Upper Rhine valley in Baden-Württemberg (Germany). The species is monophagous on Broom (Cytisus scoparius (L.) Link) at these localities, as has been the case at numerous surrounding sites of former occurrence. Five species of formicine ants – Formica pratensis Retzius, 1783, F. rufibarbis Fabricius, 1793, F. cunicularia Latreille, 1798, Lasius niger (Linnaeus, 1758) and L. psammophilus Seifert, 1992 – have been found attending caterpillars and one pupa. Oviposition, including size of plants used and height above ground, was also studied. Based on the variety of ant partners and the apparent absence of ant-dependent oviposition, we conclude that the studied population exhibits the traits of facultative myrmecophily. In contrast, other Central European populations of P. idas hitherto studied are obligatorily myrmecophilous, usually showing associations with ants of the Formica cinerea-group. Thus, a fundamental intraspecific difference concerning the degree of myrmecophily has been demonstrated for the first time in a lycaenid species. Patterns of geographic variation of life histories in P. idas are discussed, though available information is scanty. The findings on caterpillar-ant associations in the Upper Rhine valley are highly relevant for conservation issues of the local population of P. idas, which is close to extinction. Shifts in the ant fauna and structure of broom patches are supposedly not very important factors in the species’ regional decline. Nevertheless, protection measures for dry heathland such as soil disturbance may benefit ant density and thus P. idas on a local scale.

The dry body weight of adult male Lepidoptera was estimated from thirteen linear measurements of the wings and body using multivariate regression techniques. A dataset comprising information from 2,645 species was used, significantly increasing sample size with respect to a similar former approach. Based on the logarithmically transformed values of dry body weight and several linear measurements the best single predictors for body weight are body length, thorax length and head width, none of which is among the most popular descriptors of size in this insect order (namely, forewing length and wingspan). The results show that combinations of several linear measurements lead to the most precise estimates of dry body weight. More simple models, e.g. based on wing length or wingspan and body length, may provide reasonable but suboptimal approaches. Variance partitioning of the regression residuals indicated that most of the non-explained variance is attributable to morphology rather than to phylogeny, so overall the results suggest that the best models may be stable and liable for prediction except for unusual morphologies. Alternative approaches such as a taxon-by-taxon approach or ANCOVA-based methods were tested, and the results -and problems involved- are discussed. The potential relevance of co-linearity is addressed to. Based on a limited number of species, the author attempted to estimate the female to male weight relation (which happened to be nearly isometric), as well as the percent water content (38% overall). The dataset is made available so it can be accessed for any related research on this or related subjects.

Digital photography has become indispensable in many areas of biology and plays an essential role in digitization in museums and for the analysis of traits of organisms. The aspect of lighting quality has received surprisingly little attention so far, although good colour rendering is an important criterion. This paper provides an overview of the light quality of various lighting systems in three natural history museums. Light quality is usually expressed by the Colour Rendering index. Here, the relatively strict CIE (International Commission on Illumination) Re index, based on the matching of 16 colours, is used. It presents three self-developed lighting devices with different designs: a light cylinder (also suitable for UV photography of individual objects), a light box for photographing entire insect boxes and a light hemisphere for photographing specimens with reflective surfaces. No light source measured in the natural history museums in London and Berlin achieves an Re index value of >90. Compared to daylight (Re index 98–99), modern daylight LEDs perform best in the new equipment presented (Re 97–98). Existing LED lighting systems sometimes have very pronounced blue peaks and inequalities in the spectrum. The Re values are in the range between 45 and 82. Xenon light sources (such as flash units) show a balanced spectrum (Re index 87). Devices with fluorescent tubes (mercury vapour) achieve Re values of 65 to 84. The new devices ensure shadow-free and homogeneous illumination (deviation of the measured irradiance in the area < 5%) and the respective objectives (suitability for photography in the UV range, photography of entire boxes, low-reflection photography) are achieved. The paper shows some astonishing deficits in light quality in the photography and digitization of insects, which very probably also apply to other areas in biology and beyond. Digitization programs should always check the quality of their lighting and incorporate better light sources if necessary. LEDs with daylight quality are readily available and represent a high-quality alternative. Capturing colour patterns in the UV range enables the documentation of a biologically essential component of the electromagnetic spectrum. It should therefore play a far greater role in digitization programs as well as in ecological analyses.