First U.S. records of Amorbia concavana (Zeller) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae)

Amorbia concavana (Zeller) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) is reported in Florida, USA. Male and female specimens are figured, and new host records are given. The species is compared to other Nearctic species of Amorbia Clemens. Florida specimens are more similar to Cuban than to Central American material with respect to male genitalia

An annotated list of Symmachia Hübner, [1819] (Lepidoptera: Riodinidae: Symmachiini) from Parque Nacional da Serra do Divisor, Acre, Brazil, with the description of a new species

We provide an illustrated list of species belonging to the genus Symmachia Hübner, [1819] (Lepidoptera: Riodinidae: Symmachiini) collected during an expedition conducted between September 10-21, 2011 in the northern part of the Parque Nacional da Serra do Divisor, Acre, Brazil, a remote region of Amazon rainforest. A total of 46 individuals were collected belonging to 15 species. For all recorded species, drawings of male genitalia and behavioral information are provided to support future studies on the taxonomy of the group. A new species, Symmachia divisora Dolibaina and Leite, sp. nov., is described, and a revised status for Symmachia hetaerina hesione Stichel, 1910, stat. rev., is proposed.Fornecemos a lista ilustrada das espécies pertencentes ao gênero Symmachia Hübner, [1819] (Lepidoptera: Riodinidae: Symmachiini) coletadas durante uma expedição entre os dias 10-21 de setembro de 2011 na porção norte do Parque Nacional da Serra do Divisor, Acre, Brasil, uma remota região de Floresta Amazônica. Ao total foram coletados 46 indivíduos pertencentes a 15 espécies. Para todas as espécies registradas são fornecidos desenhos da genitália masculina e informações de comportamento, com a finalidade de subsidiar futuros trabalhos sobre a taxonomia do grupo. Uma nova espécie, Symmachia divisora Dolibaina and Leite, sp. nov., é descrita, assim como é proposto um status revalidado para Symmachia hetaerina hesione Stichel, 1910, stat. rev.

Sufetula Walker in Florida (Lepidoptera: Crambidae)

The two species of Sufetula Walker (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) occurring in Florida are reviewed based on adult specimens. Sufetula carbonalis n. sp. is described, Sufetula diminutalis (Walker) is diagnosed, and they are differentiated from related Caribbean species and similar sympatric Crambidae. Both are occasional root pests of ornamental palms. Unusual structural characters suggest that Sufetula is misclassified in Spilomelinae

Rediscovery of the Florida Scorpionfly, Panorpa floridana Byers (Mecoptera: Panorpidae)

We describe the rediscovery of the Florida scorpionfly, Panorpa floridana Byers (Mecoptera: Panorpidae), at Gold Head Branch State Park, Clay County, Florida, based upon a single, living, adult specimen photographed on 4 November 2010. The hardcopy photographic prints and electronic digital images of this panorpid are the first vouchers for P. floridana in 28 years, the only observation of a living specimen, and the sixth individual known of this seemingly rare Florida endemic

The importance of including habitat-specific behaviour in models of butterfly movement

Dispersal is a key process affecting population persistence and major factors affecting dispersal rates are the amounts, connectedness and properties of habitats in landscapes. We present new data on the butterfly Maniola jurtina in flower-rich and flower-poor habitats that demonstrates how movement and behaviour differ between sexes and habitat types, and how this effects consequent dispersal rates. Females had higher flight speeds than males but their total time in flight was four times less. The effect of habitat type was strong for both sexes, flight speeds were ~2.5x and ~1.7x faster on resource-poor habitats for males and females respectively, and flights were approximately 50% longer. With few exceptions females oviposited in the mown grass habitat, likely because growing grass offers better food for emerging caterpillars, but they foraged in the resource-rich habitat. It seems that females faced a trade-off between ovipositing without foraging in the mown grass or foraging without ovipositing where flowers were abundant. We show that taking account of habitat-dependent differences in activity, here categorised as flight or non-flight, is crucial to obtaining good fits of an individual-based model to observed movement. An important implication of this finding is that incorporating habitat-specific activity budgets is likely necessary for predicting longer-term dispersal in heterogeneous habitats as habitat-specific behaviour substantially influences the mean (>30% difference) and kurtosis (1.4x difference) of dispersal kernels. The presented IBMs provide a simple method to explicitly incorporate known activity and movement rates when predicting dispersal in changing and heterogeneous landscapes

Pigmentation pattern formation in butterflies: experiments and models

Butterfly pigmentation patterns are one of the most spectacular and vivid examples of pattern formation in biology. They have attracted much attention from experimentalists and theoreticians, who have tried to understand the underlying genetic, chemical and physical processes that lead to patterning. In this paper, we present a brief review of this field by first considering the generation of the localised, eyespot, patterns and then the formation of more globally controlled patterns. We present some new results applied to pattern formation on the wing of the mimetic butterfly Papilio dardanus. To cite this article: H.F. Nijhout et al., C. R. Biologies 326 (2003)

Lepidoptera Collection Curation and Data Management

The collections of Lepidoptera often serve as foundational basis for a wide range of biological, ecological, and climate science disciplines. Species identification and higher taxa delimitation based on collection specimens and especially, on types test scientific hypotheses, provide multiple types of evidence for a broad range of users. Curation and data management approaches applied in Lepidoptera collections benefit greatly from many newly developed information techniques, which link and integrate data. Mostly attention is focused on clean verified collection and taxonomic literature mining data to obtain correct species-group and higher taxa names, as well as reliable data on the distribution of Lepidoptera and their trophic interactions. Collection creation and management became a subject of natural sciences itself. The chapter provides a historic overview on collection creation and curation together with a short discussion on collection goals and purposes. The creation of a virtual collection based on interlinked data is emphasized. Information science and data management tools became very important in Lepidoptera collection curation. The complexity of techniques and computing tools used in taxonomy and the increase in the amount of data that can be obtained by collection-based disciplines make it necessary to automate data gathering, manipulation, analysis, and visualization processes

New records of woodboring beetles (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) for the eastern United States

An abundance-based checklist of eastern Buprestidae (Coleoptera) was compiled from collection records from invasive insect surveys conducted during 2010–2018. Reported are 111 species in 17 genera based on 33,047 specimens examined from 10 states. Sixty-three new state records in nine states are reported. Collection date ranges by month for each state are provided

A non-destructive virtual dissection by micro-CT reveals diagnostic characters in the type specimen of Caloptilia stigmatella (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae)

Nearly a century ago, wing venation pattern was introduced in the gracillariid taxonomy to diagnose the closely related genera and species groups. Recent advances in non-destructive virtual micro-dissections suggest a promising approach in revisiting the relevance of wing venation characters and application of this method to historic primary type specimens. Many unique type specimens in Gracillariidae and other microlepidoptera groups are preserved in the museum collections in poor condition and in the course of history suffered loss or damage to their abdomens, so internal genitalia structural morphology is not available for diagnosis and comparisons. The interpretation of wing venation characters became a significant element in Gracillariidae taxonomy dealing with species complexes and defining the boundaries of genera. In this paper we emphasize the need to include the type species and type specimens into the broader context of taxonomic studies on micro moths in general and the family Gracillariidae in particular. For the first time we introduce the method of virtual descaling of the wings in micro moths. The genus Caloptilia with a world-wide distribution has more than 200 years history of research, but the generic boundaries and groupings within the genus are not resolved yet due to the lack of a reliable set of taxonomic characters obtained from the primary types. We describe a method of virtual descaling of the fore and hindwings of an unset micro-moth type specimen Caloptilia stigmatella Fabricius, 1781, in order to demonstrate that the study of historic and fragile type specimens and diagnosis of their internal morphological characters becomes possible by applying new and non-destructive technology

Categorization of species as native or nonnative using DNA sequence signatures without a complete reference library.

New genetic diagnostic approaches have greatly aided efforts to document global biodiversity and improve biosecurity. This is especially true for organismal groups in which species diversity has been underestimated historically due to difficulties associated with sampling, the lack of clear morphological characteristics, and/or limited availability of taxonomic expertise. Among these methods, DNA sequence barcoding (also known as "DNA barcoding") and by extension, meta-barcoding for biological communities, has emerged as one of the most frequently utilized methods for DNA-based species identifications. Unfortunately, the use of DNA barcoding is limited by the availability of complete reference libraries (i.e., a collection of DNA sequences from morphologically identified species), and by the fact that the vast majority of species do not have sequences present in reference databases. Such conditions are critical especially in tropical locations that are simultaneously biodiversity rich and suffer from a lack of exploration and DNA characterization by trained taxonomic specialists. To facilitate efforts to document biodiversity in regions lacking complete reference libraries, we developed a novel statistical approach that categorizes unidentified species as being either likely native or likely nonnative based solely on measures of nucleotide diversity. We demonstrate the utility of this approach by categorizing a large sample of specimens of terrestrial insects and spiders (collected as part of the Moorea BioCode project) using a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM). Using a training data set of known endemic (n = 45) and known introduced species (n = 102), we then estimated the likely native/nonnative status for 4,663 specimens representing an estimated 1,288 species (412 identified species), including both those specimens that were either unidentified or whose endemic/introduced status was uncertain. Using this approach, we were able to increase the number of categorized specimens by a factor of 4.4 (from 794 to 3,497), and the number of categorized species by a factor of 4.8 from (147 to 707) at a rate much greater than chance (77.6% accuracy). The study identifies phylogenetic signatures of both native and nonnative species and suggests several practical applications for this approach including monitoring biodiversity and facilitating biosecurity