SEI-WOONG CHOI Finnish Museum of Natural History, Helsinki SYSTEMATICS OF THE GENUS HETEROTHERA INOUE (LEPIDOPTERA, GEOMETRIDAE: LARENTIINAE) S.-W. Choi, 1998, Systematics of the genus Heterothera Inoue (Lepidoptera, Geomecridae: Lar-entiinae). -Tijdschrift voor Entomologie 141: 19-47, figs. 1-57. [issn 0040-7496]. Published 30 November 1998. The genus Heterothera Inoue, occurring widely in the Palaearctic and in the high mountains of the Oriental region, is revised and twenty-three species are recognized. Nine species are de-scribed as new: Heterothera hoenei Choi sp. n., H. yunnanensis Choi sp. n., H. triangulata Choi sp. n., H. eclinosis Choi sp. n., H. stamineata Choi sp. n., H. obscurata Choi sp. n., H. distinc-tata Choi sp. n., H. mussooriensis Choi sp. n. and H. kurenzovi Choi, Viidalepp & Vasjurin sp. n., and five new combinations are suggested: Heterothera tephroptilus (Fletcher) comb, n., H. serrataria (Prout) comb, n., H. êtes (Prout) comb, n., H. comitahilis (Prout) comb. n. and H. undulata (Warren) comb. n. A key and illustrations of adults and genitalia are given. The monophyly of Heterothera and the species relationships are discussed. In addition, four poorly known taxa of Thera sensu Prout, T. cyphoschema Prout (= atrinotata Joannis syn. n.), T. exan-gulata Warren, and Pennithera distractata Sterneck comb, n., are redescribed and the taxono-my of these species is briefly discussed. Correspondence: Sei-Woong Choi, Department of Entomology, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th St., New York, NY 10024, USA. E-mail:
[email protected] Key words. -Systematics; Geometridae; Larentiinae; Heterothera; Palaearctic; Oriental. The genus Heterothera Inoue consists of medium-sized geometrid moths in the subfamily Larentiinae, which are widely spread in the Palaearctic and Orien-tal regions. The genus was erected by Inoue (1943) based on the following characters: the absence of un-cus, long anal tube, stout and flat saccus, weakly scle-rotized costa and a well developed sacculus. The mo-nophyly of the genus Heterothera s.s. was first defined by Viidalepp (1980). He listed seven apomorphies for the genus: the bifid saccus, the absence of an uncus, the membranous ductus and corpus bursae without signum, the simple sterigma, the distinct sacculus, the presence of cornuti on the vesica, and the filiform male antenna. Two synapomorphies out of seven, the bifid saccus and the absence of uncus, were unique to Heterothera s.s. However, the character 'absence of uncus' was found to be incorrect. Inoue (1982) proposed a new genus Viidaleppia for the species of Asaphodes sensu Viidalepp (1980). Later, he (Inoue 1986) described the characters of the genus Viidaleppia as: doubly bipectinated male antenna, strongly sclerotized costa and pointed apex of fore-wing, sclerotized and plate-like sacculus, well devel-oped apical projection of the sacculus, numerous spin-ular cornuti, well developed sterigma, and a broad ductus bursae. However, the genus Heterothera s.s. was found to be paraphyletic in relation to Viidaleppia and the lat-ter was synonymized with Heterothera in a cladistic analysis of the Cidariini sensu Herbulot (Choi 1997; see 'Diagnosis and monophyly' for synapomorphies). Since the works of Prout (1914, 1938, 1941), the taxonomy of Thera s.l. has been considerably changed, due to the discovery of many new species and a dif-ferent analytical approach (e.g. Viidalepp 1980, Choi 1997). As a result of the cladistic analysis, the genus Heterothera s.l. is characterized by several derived characters and, based on these, many undescribed species of the genus have been recognized, mainly from southwestern China and northern India. The purpose of the present study is to revise the species of Heterothera. While the taxonomy of several poorly known species of Thera s.l., such as T. exangulata, T. cyphoschema, T. atrinotata and T. distractata, is uncer-tain, another purpose is to redescribe these species in order to understand their relationships better. 19
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