Towards assimilation of the Australasian fauna into the modern classification of Noctuidae: a review of Australia's largest noctuid genus, Proteuxoa Hampson, 1903 (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) and reinstatement of two genera

Abstract

Proteuxoa Hampson, 1903, became the largest Australian Noctuidae genus in 1996, when E.D. Edwards referred 77 species to it for the Checklist of the Lepidoptera of Australia. However, the Noctuidae subfamily classifications in the Checklist are acknowledged to be problematic, and because the Australian fauna has received little scientific attention since it was published, the taxonomy of many species is yet to be clarified. As a step towards the assimilation of Australasian fauna into the modern classification of Noctuidae, the largest known Australian genus is here reviewed using a combination of morphological characters, COI data from 409 specimens representing 58 species of Proteuxoa Hampson, 1903 (sensu Edwards) and the outgroup Athetis tenuis (Butler, 1886) and data from five additional genes (CPS-CAD, EF-1a, GAPDH, RpS5, Wgl) representing 26 species of Proteuxoa (sensu Edwards) and A. tenuis. Peripyra Hampson, 1908 reinst. stat., and Androdes Turner, 1920 reinst. stat., are removed from synonymy with Proteuxoa and re-established as valid genera, each with two described species, based on phylogenetic analyses of those DNA-based data, as well as the morphological evidence. Adult morphological characters are described for distinguishing Proteuxoa sensu stricto from its closest known relatives in Australasia, that is, Peripyra, Androdes and Thoracolopha Turner, 1939, all of which are morphologically consistent with adult Noctuinae sensu lato from other parts of the world. To assist future studies of world Noctuidae, reference COI sequences are now available in BOLD for 55 described species, and data from three to five additional gene regions are available for a subset of 27 species via GenBank.