Issue

Metamicroptera christophi Przybylowicz, 2005, a hitherto rarely recorded species new for Malawi (Lepidoptera: Erebidae, Arctiinae, Syntomini)

Metamicroptera christophi Przybylowicz, 2005 una especie raramente registrada, nueva para Malawi (Lepidoptera: Erebidae, Arctiinae, Syntomini)

Introduction

Metamicroptera christophi Przybyłowicz, 2005 (Erebidae: Arctiinae) is recorded for the first time from Malawi based on a single specimen housed in the Lepidoptera collection of the African Natural History Research Trust in Leominster (ANHRT, the UK).

The species was described by Przybyłowicz (2005) based on a short series of two males from Tanzania and Zambia. The type specimens are housed in the Natural History Museum, London (UK) and Transvaal Museum, Pretoria (RSA) respectively.

Since its description, this species had not been detected, neither in any Lepidoptera collection I visited nor among newly collected, fully scrutinized material. Only recently, a single specimen representing M. christophi was discovered in the collection of ANHRT among a long series of similar and much commoner specimens of Metamicroptera rotundata Hulstaert, 1923.

Details

The detailed data of the voucher specimen are as follows:

Metamicroptera christophi Przybyłowicz, 2005

Metamicroptera christophi Przybyłowicz, 2005. Acta zool. cracov., 48B(1-2): 14

M alawi, Nkhata Bay, Kolwe Forest reserve, 11º36’39”S, 34º14’60”E, 540 m, 1 ♂, 19-IV-2011, R. Yakovlev, leg./ex. coll. R. Yakovlev, ANHRT:2018.32/ANHRTUK 00147953.

The specimen perfectly matches the original description, providing no additional information on possible intraspecific variation in pattern and coloration.

The new locality is not only a new country record for this extremely rare species of arctiine but provides a distributional link between Tanzanian record located much further north and the Zambian one to the south-west ( Figure 1). These new data favours the hypothesis that the range of M. christophi may be continuous along the subequatorial grass savannah biome of Eastern Africa.

Figures 1-2.
1. Known localities of Metamicroptera christophi in East Africa. Red dot - new locality in Malawi, black dots - known localities in Zambia and Tanzania. 2.Metamicroptera male habitus with respective labels, to the same scale. A)M. christophi; B)M. rotundata. Black arrows indicate the diagnostic and easily visible character - the coloration of frons, which is white in M. christophi and black in M. rotundata.

The collecting month (April) indicates that the imago is on the wing at the end of the main rainy season, which in Malawi lasts from December until April ( Mungai et al. 2016). However, the length of the entire flying season remains unknown.

Metamicroptera christophi ( Figure 2A) may be confused with the similar M. rotundata ( Figure 2B). It is, however, much smaller and shows a markedly reduced white pattern on the forewing (as far as can be judged only by external comparison between the species). The clearest and most discrete diagnostic character is a white colored frons which in M. rotundata is entirely black.

With now still only three known specimens, the life history details and ecological and habitat preferences of M. christophi remain completely unknown. The females of either Metamicroptera species are not described yet, although they are expected to be markedly larger and sexually dimorphic from the known males as it is common in other “Balacra-like” African Syntomini ( Przybyłowicz, 2009).

Acknowledgments

I thank to Gyula M. László (ANHRT) who kindly took the photographs of depicted specimens and to David Lees (NHMUK) who corrected the text linguistically.

References

Mungai, L. M., Snapp, S., Messina, J. P., Chikowo, R., Smith, A., Anders, E., Richardson R. B., & Li, G. (2016). Smallholder Farms and the Potential for Sustainable Intensification. Frontiers in Plant Science, 16(7), https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2016.01720.

Przybyłowicz, Ł. (2005). A new Afrotropical species of Metamicroptera Hulstaert, 1923 with the first record of M. rotundata Hulst. from Zambia (Lepidoptera: Arctiidae). Acta zoologica Cracoviensia, 48B(1-2), 139-144.

Przybyłowicz, Ł. (2009). Thyretini of Africa. An illustrated catalogue of the Thyretini (Lepidoptera: Arctiidae: Synthominae) of the Afrotropical Region. Entomonograph, 16, 1-170.