Volume 30: 19–24 METAMORPHOSIS ISSN 1018–6490 (PRINT) ISSN 2307–5031 (ONLINE) LEPIDOPTERISTS’ SOCIETY OF AFRICA A new species of Leptomyrina Butler, 1898 (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) from Mts Mecula, Namuli, Inago, Nallume and Mabu in Northern Mozambique urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:BD9304A2-682E-415F-AB9E-1D751B0221D4 Published online: 3 December 2019 Julian Bayliss1,2, Oskar Brattström1,3,4, Ivan Bampton(†)1 and Steve Collins1 1African Butterfly Research Institute, P.O. Box 14308, 0800 Nairobi, Kenya. E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] 2 Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, OX3 0BP, United Kingdom. 3 School of Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom. 4 Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, United Kingdom. Copyright © Lepidopterists’ Society of Africa Abstract: This paper describes a new species of Leptomyrina from five mountains in northern Mozambique – Mts Mecula, Namuli, Inago, Nallume and Mabu. Specimens were collected over the course of several years between 2007 and 2019 through a series of biodiversity surveys of the mountains of northern Mozambique. This species differs from others in the group based on the rounded and tail-less shape of the hindwing, and the dusting of powder blue scales on the upper side of the males. The genitalia also show significant differences to others in the group. It is found towards the summits of these mountains at elevations generally over 1000m and feeds on Crassulaceae. Key words: Leptomyrina, Gonatomyrina, congdoni, Black-eyes, Mecula, Namuli, Mabu, Inago, Nallume, Mozambique. Citation: Bayliss, J., Brattström, O., Bampton, I. & Collins S.C. 2019. A new species of Leptomyrina Butler, 1898 (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) from Mts Mecula, Namuli, Inago, Nallume and Mabu in Northern Mozambique. Metamorphosis 30: 19– 24. INTRODUCTION L. gorgias is known from all the above plus Uganda, Somalia and Swaziland. The genus Leptomyrina belongs to the Family Lycaenidae Leach, 1815; Subfamily Theclinae Swainson, 1831; Tribe L. hirundo was caught on Mts Namuli and Mabu in Hypolycaenini Swinhoe, 1910. The other genera in the northern Mozambique in addition to the new species Tribe Hypolycaenini in the Afrotropical Region are described in this paper (Congdon et al., 2010), and Hypolycaena and Hemiolaus. The genus Leptomyrina L. gorgias sobrina was also collected on Mts Njesi and Butler, 1898, commonly known as the Black-eyes, is an Inago (Fig. 1). L. handmani has not so far been caught in Afrotropical genus containing nine previously described Mozambique although it is found on Mt Mulanje in species (d’Abrera, 2009; Williams, 2019). southern Malawi on the Mozambique border. It would therefore be expected to occur on the Mozambique side of Of the nine species described to date, five have hindwing tails. These are L. phidias (Fabricius, 1793); L. hirundo Mulanje (Mlanje), and perhaps on Mt Chiperoni in (Wallengren, 1857); L. makala Bethune-Baker, 1908; northern Mozambique, which is only 60km from Mt L. sudanica Stempffer, 1964; and L. boschi Strand, 1911. Mulanje (Fig. 1). The remaining four species do not have hindwing tails. Three of these have sharply attenuated hindwings. They The new species described in this paper most closely are L. handmani (Gifford, 1965); L. gorgias (Stoll, 1790); resembles L. lara. It was collected from the high-altitude and L. henningi (Dickson, 1976). The fourth, L. lara mountains of northern Mozambique through a series of (Linnaeus, 1764), is a small, bronze species with a scientific expeditions to survey the biodiversity of these rounded hindwing, and with no hindwing tail although the sites (Fig. 1). Between 2007 and 2009 these expeditions, males have a small protrusion at tornus of hindwing. It is funded by the Darwin Initiative (UK), were organised confined to southern Africa, as far north as Lesotho. through the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, in collaboration with the Instituto de Investigação Agrária de Several of these species are already known from Mozambique. L. hirundo is known from Kenya, Tanzania, Moçambique, the Mulanje Mountain Conservation Trust Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique and South Africa. (Malawi), BirdLife International, and the Forest Research Institute of Malawi. From 2010 to 2019 the African Butterfly Research Institute (ABRI) based in Nairobi Received: 8 October 2019 coordinated the survey of butterflies from these Published: 4 December 2019 mountains. To date the biological surveys of these Copyright: This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To mountains in northern Mozambique have resulted in the view a copy of this license, send a letter to Creative Commons, discovery of the largest continuous tract of medium Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA, altitude rainforest in southern Africa (Bayliss et al., 2014) or visit: http://creative commons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ and more than 30 new species were discovered (Branch & Bayliss et al. / Metamorphosis 30: 19–24 20 Bayliss, 2009; Branch & Tolley, 2010; Staude et al., 2011; samples were transferred to a 70% ethanol solution and Daniels & Bayliss, 2012; Taylor et al., 2012; Daniels et cleaned under a stereomicroscope using a pair of micro al., 2014; Branch et al., 2014; Conradie et al., 2018; forceps (Dumont #55). Images were acquired using a Branch et al., 2019), which included 4 new species and 4 Leica DFC495 digital camera coupled to a Leica M125 new sub-species of butterfly (Congdon & Bampton, 2009; stereomicroscope. To improve the depth of field for the Congdon et al., 2010; Congdon & Bayliss, 2012; Van images we used focus-stacking software provided with the microscope (Leica Application Software (LAS) Ver. Velzen et al., 2016; Bayliss et al., 2016; Bayliss et al., 3.8.0). Images were later cleaned up in Adobe Photoshop 2018). CC, only neutralising the background and lining each structure up in comparable orientations. The genitalia were photographed whilst submerged in 70% ethanol and the angle can be slightly different between pictures, but all structural differences described in the text were verified by manually cross-comparing samples under the microscope from various angles. The genitalia structure of L. lara was drawn in detail by Stempffer (1967) and we compared this with our two dissections. Abbreviations ABRI – African Butterfly Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya. DESCRIPTION OF NEW SPECIES Genus Leptomyrina Butler, 1898 Figure 1 – Map showing study area between Malawi and Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1898: Mozambique, and location of Mts Mecula, Namuli, Inago, 405 (395–444). Nallume and Mabu in relation to neighbouring mountains above Type-species: Hesperia phidias Fabricius, by original 1 500 m. designation. Gonatomyrina Aurivillius, 1924. In: Seitz, 1908–25. Die Gross-Schmetterlinge der MATERIAL AND METHODS Erde, Stuttgart (2) 13 Die Afrikanischen Tagfalter: 423 Specimen acquisition (614 pp.). Type-species: Papilio lara Linnaeus, by monotypy. Nearly all specimens of the new species of Leptomyrina D’Abrera (2009: 768) synonymises Gonatomyrina with were collected opportunistically with a range of butterfly Leptomyrina syn. nov. hand nets on several visits to Mt Mecula (12°4ʹ39ʹʹS 37°37ʹ49ʹʹE), Mt Namuli (15°21ʹ37.29ʹʹS 37°03ʹ30.91ʹʹE), Leptomyrina congdoni Bayliss, Brattström, Bampton, Mt Mabu (16°17ʹ56ʹʹS 36°23ʹ44ʹʹE), Mt Inago and Collins sp.nov. urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:BD9304A2-682E-415F-AB9E-1D751B0221D4 (15°02ʹ42ʹʹS 37°23ʹ46ʹʹE) and Mt Nallume (15°03ʹ32.97ʹʹS 38°32ʹ45.78ʹʹE) between 2007 and 2019 Holotype: male: Mt Namuli MOZAMBIQUE ABRI 2018 by members of ABRI. 4651 20–30.xi.2008 JB.IB.TCEC.MH. Figs 2a & 2b. : MOZAMBIQUE Analysis and terminology Paratypes Paratype1 – Namuli ♀ same data as Holotype (Figs 3a & In the description of the new subspecies the wing venation 3b) terminology follows Larsen, 2005: 54 (Figs 19a & b). Paratype 2 – Mecula ♂ Mecula JB/SC/TCE/MH vi.2012 ♂ Bred (Figs 2c & 2d) Comparative material examined Paratype 3 – Mecula ♀ Mecula TCEC/MH 20.vi.2012 ♀ All specimens collected, examined, and presented in this Bred (Figs 3c & 3d) manuscript are deposited in ABRI. A larger series of Paratype 4 – Mabu ♂ Mt Mabu x.2008 TCEC/IB/MH L. congdoni were also examined at ABRI collectively (Figs 2e & 2f) from the four mountains and these data also used in Paratype 5 – Inago ♂ Mt Inago 27–29.iv.2008 JB (Figs 2g elements of the species description. These were compared & 2h) to other species of Leptomyrina that are currently Paratype 6 – Inago ♀ Mt Inago 30.v.2009 IB Bred (Figs deposited at ABRI, in particular a sizeable collection of 3e & 3f) L. lara. Description of facies Genitalia Male holotype: The abdominal tips of both specimens were dissected to Wingspan. Figs 2a & 2b = 19 mm. study the genitalia characters. The tissues were places in Upper side. Forewing ground colour dark brown, more or glass vials containing about 500 µl 10% KOH solution heated to just below boiling point. After eight minutes the less heavily overlaid with powder blue scaling (Fig. 2a). Two sub-marginal black eyespots, ringed with whitish Bayliss et al. / Metamorphosis 30: 19–24 21 scales. Hindwing rounded and lacking a tail although there Underside. Forewing ground colour blueish grey, much is a very slight protrusion at tornus of hindwing. Ground lighter than upper side (Fig. 3b). Two eyespots ringed colour dark brown, overlaid with powder blue scaling. white. One post-discal line of dark spots, edged white. A Two black sub-marginal eye-spots, ringed with whitish white edged dark comma at cell end. Hindwing ground scales. These are continued as a row of whitish sub- colour same as forewing – blueish grey, much lighter than marginal spots, and with a second row basally. upper side. A line of indistinct dark spots discally, these Underside. Forewing ground colour blueish grey (Fig. being subtended with white scaling. A dark comma at cell 2b). Two eyespots ringed white. Two post discal lines of end finely surrounded with white scaling.