Drepanogynis insciata (Felder & Rogenhofer, 1875), a South African geometrid moth lost to science rediscovered after more than 140 years (Lepidoptera, Geometridae, Ennominae)

By

Sihvonen, Pasi
Lee, Kyung Min
Söderholm, Max
Rajaei, Hossein
Hausmann, Axel
Staude, Hermann S.

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2025-12-2

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

1261

Pages

261--276

Subjects

DNA barcoding , molecular phylogeny , Morphology , rediscovery

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1261.171904

 

Abstract

<br> The geometrid moth<br> Drepanogynis insciata<br> (Felder &amp; Rogenhofer, 1875) has been known only from two specimens in the Natural History Museum, London, UK: the holotype male collected before 1875 from South Africa, and a second male specimen without date and collecting locality data but probably collected before 1879. Unexpectedly, 13 specimens of this species—long considered lost to science—were observed in four locations between 2020 and 2023 in the Western Cape, near the type locality of the species. These observations were based on photographs available on iNaturalist, apart from a single male attracted to light, which was collected and vouchered for study from the Western Cape on 28 January 2022. We illustrate<br> D. insciata<br> and the newly collected specimen using both classical dissection and non-destructive micro-CT imaging. Phylogenetic analysis based on the multi-gene maximum-likelihood method places the species within Ennominae, tribe Drepanogynini. DNA barcodes reveal its nearest genetic neighbor to be<br> Drepanogynis smaragdaria<br> Krüger, 2002, with 5.9% sequence divergence. We discuss the conservation implications of this rediscovery.<br>