A NEW SUBSPECIES OF EUMEDONIA EUMEDON (LEPIDOPTERA, LYCAENIDAE) FROM THE RUSSIAN FAR EAST

V. V. Dubatolov

Siberian Zoological Museum, Institute of Animal Systematics and Ecology, Frunze street, 11, Novosibirsk, 630091, Russia

Based on a material collected in the Southern Primorye (the Russian Far East) a new subspecies Eumedonia eumedon albica is described. It differs from the nominotypical one from Europe, Siberia, the Amur region and Sakhalin Is. by a very diffuse white pattern and by a strong white tint of the ground colour of the hind wing underside. The new subspecies inhabits southern regions of the Primorskii Krai Province in Russia and Korea.

KEY WORDS: Lycaenidae, Eumedonia eumedon, new subspecies, Primorye, Far East.

INTRODUCTION

On expedition to the Southern Primorye territory in 1993 to the Sinii Range I have collected Eumedonia eumedon (Esper, 1780) butterflies which differ noticeably from the nominotypical one. A description of a new subspecies is given below. The types are deposited in Siberian Zoological Museum, Institute of Animal Systematics and Ecology, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Novosibirsk, Russia). The author is very grateful to Prof. T. Fujioka (Tokyo, Japan) for his help in organizing the expedition to Primorye in 1993-1995 and to Dr. O. E. Kosterin - for a correction the English version of the paper.

Eumedonia eumedon albica Dubatolov, ssp. n.

Material. Holotype - a male. "Primorye, Anuchino district, 13-14 km N of Chernyshevka, village LZP-3, damp meadow, 17 VII 1993, V. V. Dubatolov & V. K. Zintshenko leg. Paratypes - 9 males, 4 females, the same locality, 15, 17 VII 1993, the same collectors; 1 male, Yakovlevka, 4 VIII 1981, P. Ya. Ustjuzhanin leg.; 1 male, Chuguevka district, the Pavlovka river, middle flow, 25 VII 1982, Silchenko leg.
Male. Fore wing length is 14 mm in the holotype, 14,5-17 mm in paratypes. Wing upperside dark brown; there are 1-2 orange crescent patches in a tornal angle of the hind wings; sometimes there is a sign of a third crescent between veins M3 and CuA. Wing underside is greyish-brown with a conspicuous whitish tincture; it is mostly visible on hind wing. The pattern is of the same type as in the nominotypical subspecies but the white pattern is extended and strongly diffused. There are specimens of the new subspecies almost without the white stroke between the discal spot and the postdiscal row of spots on hind wing underside. If present, the stroke is not contrasted, its margins being strongly diffused.
Female. Fore wing length - 14,5-16,5 mm. Wing pattern as in male, but there are always three orange crescents in the tornal angle, which are more expressed. A coloration and pattern of wing underside as in male. One female paratype has so strong whitish tincture that wing underside coloration is not brownish but greyish-white.
Systematical notes. The nominative subspecies is distributed from Europe through Siberia east to the Amur Province (a personal communication of A. Streltzov) and Sakhalin Is. (Junichi, 1993). E. e. albica ssp. n. differs from the nominotypical one by a strong whitish tincture on the wing underside and a diffuse white pattern. Specimens from Europe and Siberia has wing underside always brown, with the white pattern very clear and contrasted. A report for Sakhalin by Ch. Junichi (1993) of another subspecies, E. e. ambigua (Staudinger, 1899), according to nice colour slides in the paper in fact refers to the nominotypical one as well. The specimens of the new subspecies were attributed formerly to E. e. f. fylgia Spangenberg [Kurentzov, 1970], or to the nominotypical one [Tuzov, 1993], or to E. e. ambigua (Lee, 1982; Junichi, 1993). The latter was described from the mountains of Eastern Middle Asia with unprecise type locality: "Tura" (Staudinger, 1899; R(hl, 1895). Later the type locality was specified to the Ferghana Province of the former Russian Empire (Staudinger, Rebel, 1901). The first figure of this subspecies was published by A. Seitz (1909: fig. 80b). It differs well from the new subspecies by a brownish colour of the wing underside and a more contrasted white pattern. There are some specimens of E. e. ambigua from the Eastern Middle Asian mountains (Tadzhikistan, materials of Siberian Zoological Museum) with fuzzy margins of the white pattern, but this fuzzing is not so strong as in new subspecies, and the butterflies are smaller and lack a whitish tincture of the wing underside.

REFERENCES

Junichi, Ch. 1993. Record of Eumedonia eumedon from Sakhalin Is. - Butterflies, 5: 53 (in Japanese).
Kurentzov, A.I. 1970. Bulavousye cheshuekrylye Dal'nego Vostoka SSSR. Opredelitel' [The butterflies of the Far East of the USSR. A guide]. Nauka, Leningrad: 164 p., XIV pl. (In Russian).
Lee, 1982. Butterflies of Korea. Seoul: 125 p., 62 pl.
R(hl, F. 1895. Die palaearktischen Grossschmetterlinge und ihre Naturgeschichte. Erster Band. Tagfalter. Leipzig: 857 S.
Seitz, A. 1909. 8. Familie: Lycaenidae. In: Seitz, A. Die Gross-Schmetterlinge der Erde. 1 Abt.: Die Gross-Schmetterlinge des Palaearktischen Faunengebietes. 1 Band: Die Palaearktischen Tagfalter. Berlin: 173-180, Taf. 53-55.
Staudinger, O. 1899. Ueber Lepidopteren aus dem (stlichsten Thian-Shan-Gebiet. - Deutsche Entomol. Zeitschr., Iris: 12: 321-351, t. 7.
Staudinger, O., Rebel, H. 1901. Catalog der Lepidopteren des palaearctischen Faunengebietes. Berlin: 42+111+368 S.
Tuzov, V.K. 1993. The synonymic list of butterflies from the ex-USSR. Rosagroservice, Moscow: 73 p.

LAST NOTE (!):
E. e. albica occur together with E. e. eumedon in the Amur Province in SE Russia! So, albica might be a good species! New investigation is need! - V.V.Dubatolov, 1998.