Diario de regisrafael

Lophocampa atrimaculata was first described by Hampson, 1901 as Halisidota atrimaculata (https://archive.org/details/catalogueoflepid03brituoft/page/166/mode/1up?view=theater) along with a drawing (https://archive.org/details/catalogueoflepid13brit/page/n197/mode/2up?view=theater). The BOLDSystems website has images of museum specimens of this species from Brazil and Costa Rica (https://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Taxbrowser_Taxonpage?taxid=381556). Another website with available images of L. atrimaculata is the fieldguide.ai (https://leps.fieldguide.ai/figures?category=59baf45f929d3d10ea8f33b5), with the only available location being the Brazilian state of São Paulo.

The species is characterized by an ocher coloration; black dots on the vertex of the head, patagia, tegula, tibia, tarsus, and forewings. The most similar species with sympatric distribution is Lophocampa modesta. L. atrimaculata has a greater number and more well-defined dots on the thorax, with one pair on the collar, one pair on the patagia, two pairs on the tegula, and two centralized dots, whereas L. modesta has only one centralized dot and a well-defined pair on the tegula, the others are absent or blurred. The forewing of L. modesta has three large black spots, on the costa in the antemedial region, on the discal cell, and near the outer margin between veins M2 and M3. In addition to these, L. atrimaculata also has a spot near the anal angle and another in the antemedial area of the posterior margin. The spot on the discal cell of L. atrimaculata does not merge with the spots on the costa.

I searched the Inaturalist website for photographs corresponding to the species Lophocampa atrimaculata. Photographs of adults identified at least in the subfamily Arctiinae in the countries of South America were selected, except for the Andean countries Ecuador and Chile and the northernmost countries.

I found 12 photographs that matched the species. Specimens were found in the Brazilian states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro.

Despite the original description of the species documenting its presence in Peru and Bolivia, I did not find any specimens in these countries or nearby locations. Both countries have a large database of images on the site, and therefore I believe that an identification error may have occurred in the original description, which seems to have been based on the specimen from Rio de Janeiro and a similar species occurring in Peru and Bolivia, perhaps L. modesta. Therefore, I believe it would be important to locate and analyze the individuals that originated the species description. The individuals from Costa Rica also appear to be a misidentification. The same identifier also published specimens of L. modesta in the region, which is similar but different. These individuals also deserve further study of the genitalia and genetic comparison to those found in Brazil. I believe that the individuals from Brazil are those that truly belong to this species, as they are more similar to both the description and the images provided by Hampson and later authors.

The species Loxophlebia flavinigra was first described by Jones, 1908 (https://archive.org/details/transactionsofen1908roya/page/144/mode/1up?view=theater) with the type locality in Castro, municipality of Paraná. Hampson, 1914 provided a drawing of the species (https://archive.org/details/catalogueoflepid12brit/page/n41/mode/2up?view=theater) along with a new description (https://archive.org/details/catalogueoflepid01brit/page/137/mode/1up?view=theater).

The main characteristics of the species include its yellow-orange coloration of the head, thorax, abdomen, and base of the forewing; black band on the vertex, interrupted at the collar and continued on the dorsal surface of the thorax and abdomen; black band on the patagia; two posterior black dots on the collar; terminal segments of the abdomen with a black stripe on the side and anterior portion of the segment, which together with the central stripe form cells of yellow-orange coloration; hyaline wings with black margins; forewing with a black spot in the discal cell.

In order to verify the geographical distribution of the species, I searched for photographs of L. flavinigra on the Inaturalist website. Observations of adults identified at least at the subfamily level Arctiinae in the Brazilian states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, and Mato Grosso do Sul, the Argentine province of Misiones, and Paraguay were selected.

I found 18 individuals corresponding to the species L. flavinigra in the Brazilian states of Santa Catarina, Paraná, and Rio de Janeiro.

All the locations where the species was found on the Inaturalist website had already been reported in the literature (Ferro et al., 2012; Nascimento et al., 2016). However, regarding the description of the species, Jones and Hampson did not describe the black stripes on the anterior portion of the terminal segments of the abdomen. Additionally, the drawing provided by Hampson shows these stripes on all segments of the abdomen, which is not the case in the first two.

Bibliography:

FERRO, V.G., RESENDE, I.M.H. & DUARTE, M. 2012. The Arctiinae moths (Lepidoptera: Erebidae) of Santa Catarina state, Brazil. Biota Neotrop. 12(4): 166-180;

NASCIMENTO, M.S., FERRO, V.G., MONTEIRO, R.F. 2016 Arctiinae (Lepidoptera: Erebidae) in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Biota Neotropica. 16(2): 1-23.

On April 7th, I went on a trail in the local park with the aim of documenting bryophytes, a group for which I have few records and would like to study further. Branches fall from trees with various epiphytes that are commonly difficult to reach and take good photographs of, and my idea was to take advantage of these fallen branches to document the bryophytes.

I found some branches in great condition and, recognizing the species, took photographs. On the abaxial part of some leaves of Ilex paraguariensis, I found a mollusk, which I took the opportunity to document.

I did not recognize the species, and when registering it on the Inaturalist platform, the genus Ovachlamys was suggested by artificial intelligence. I used the suggestion from artificial intelligence as an initial identification. A few minutes later, Daniel Cavallari identified the specimen as Ovachlamys fulgens. I noticed that the platform listed this species as exotic to Brazil and that it was the only observation in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul.

I decided to investigate if this species had already been recorded in this state and conducted a search on Google Scholar. One of the first results was a recent article on the known distribution of this species in Brazil. Rosa et al., 2022 had no evidence of this species for Rio Grande do Sul and placed the southern boundary of the species in the state of Santa Catarina.

Thus, this record becomes the first known evidence of the exotic species Ovachlamys fulgens in the state of Rio Grande do Sul.

Bibliography:

Rosa, R.M.; Salvador, R.B.; Teixeira, L.; Bornschein, M.R.; Cavallari, D.C. The rapid expansion of the jumping snail Ovachlamys fulgens in Brazil. Diversity 2022, 14, 815.