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Volume 37, Number 2
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the vastly more abundant "alba" females. For recent reviews of the biochemistry and adaptive value of the "alba" variant see Watt (1973, Evolution 27:537-548) and Graham et al. (1980, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 77:3615-3619). The selective (if any) and biochemical details of the white male coloration remain unknown.
The new white male C. meadii also exhibits a second interesting genetic character, that of "black-vein" (Fig. 1 does not show this character particularly well). A typical and a wild-captured "black-vein" C. alexandra Edw., both taken 5 km east of Crested Butte, elev. 8950 m, late June 1977, are shown for comparison (Fig. 3). Ae (1958, Genetics 43:564-576) demonstrated that "black-vein" is almost certainly the product of a single autosomal allele. The white male C. meadii is indeed curious, as the viability and/or penetrance of the "black-vein" character appear low (ibid.; Remington, op. cit.). The two white males have been deposited in the entomological collections at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University.
Lawrence F. Gall, Department of Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520.
Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society 37(2), 1983, 179-180
ON THE STATUS OF PSEUDOTHYATIRA EXPULTRIX (GRT.) AND EUTHYATIRA PENNSYLVANICA J. B. SMITH (THYATIRIDAE)
Pseudothyatira cymatophoroides (Guenee, 1852) and P. expultrix (Grote, 1863) were described as distinct species and continued to be regarded as such until about 1917. I am not sure who was responsible for the change, but in the Barnes & McDunnough check list of that year expultrix was treated as a form of cymatophoroides. There it remained until 1966, when Werny, in a world revision of a large part of the Thyatiridae, restored it to specific rank (p. 322), citing in support of this some minor genital differences as well as the more obvious differences in wing markings. I have dissections of several specimens of each form and can see no differences in the genitalia. The two "species" always occur together, from Newfoundland to British Columbia, south to northern California, Maryland, West Virginia, Kansas, and in the Appalachians to North Carolina (probably, also the White Mountains, Arizona, but only one example seen, a male of the nominate form from Pinetop, Navajo Co., about 8000 ft, R. B. Nagle collection). I have recently seen both forms from a locality much farther south than previously reported—West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana (V. A. Brou collection). It is, therefore, not surprising that doubts concerning the validity of Werny's taxonomic change should have persisted. I know that these moths have been reared by others, but no conclusive results of such a test have appeared in the literature.
On 31 May 1980 I collected at bait a female of the nominate (well-marked) form (Fig. 1) at Colesville, Montgomery Co., Maryland, and from eggs laid by this moth reared a brood of 37 adult progeny in August and September of the same year. The larvae were reared on Betula nigra L., B. populifolia Marsh, and Prunus virginiana L., as available. Sixteen of the offspring were of the nominate form (Fig. 2), and 21 were of form expultrix (Fig. 3), showing conclusively that these are indeed forms of the same species.
The situation with respect to Euthyatira pudens (Guenee, 1852) and E. pennsylvan-ica J. B. Smith, 1902 is not so certain. Werny (1966, Untersuchungen iiber die Syste-matik der Tribus Thyatirini, Macrothyatirini, Habrosynini und Tetheini (Lepidoptera: Thyatiridae), Inaugural-Dissertation, Universitat des Saarlandes, Saarbriicken, Germany, pp. 237, 245) also elevated pennsylvanica from the status of an infrasubspecific form to that of a species. The few pudens that have been reared from eggs have turned
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Figs. 1-3. Pseudothyatira cymatophoroides: 1, 9, Colesville, Montgomery Co., Maryland, 31 May 1980, parent of brood; 2, $, reared from 9 shown in Fig. 1; 3, 6 of form "expultrix," reared from 9 shown in Fig. 1. About natural size.
out to be of the same form as the parent, which does not prove anything. There is still a need for broods to be reared from females of pennsylvanica. The circumstances are different from those of E. cymatophoroides in that normal pudens has a very wide distribution similar to that of cymatophoroides; whereas, pennsylvanica seems limited to certain areas of the Middle Atlantic States. This is the region where industrial melanism has been most prevalent in North America, affecting perhaps as many as a hundred species, and I had supposed that pennsylvanica was the industrial melanic of pudens.
Werny (p. 245) also introduced a problem of authorship with respect to the name pennsylvanica. In elevating the name to specific rank, he listed himself as author in accordance with Article 10b of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Although Smith (1902, J. N.Y. Entomol. Soc. 10:34) referred to pennsylvanica by the ambiguous term of 'Variety," it is clear from the original description that he was applying the name to an infrasubspecific form. In his check list published the next year, Smith (1903, Check List of the Lepidoptera of Boreal America, Amer. Entomol. Soc, Philadelphia, p. 61) listed it as "b pennsylvanica Sm." as though it were a subspecies, but again, it is clear from the general context that he did not differentiate between infrasubspecific forms and subspecies. Other authors of that period, such as Dyar, also failed to make this distinction or did so inconsistently. Barnes & McDunnough (1917, Check List of the Lepidoptera of Boreal America, Herald Press, Decatur, Illinois, p. 96) did consistently make the distinction and treated pennsylvanica as a subspecies. The elevation of pennsylvanica to the rank of a species group name by Barnes & McDunnough far antedates that of Werny, and it appears that they should be cited as the authors in the event of its continued use in a specific sense. However, in the new Check List of the Lepidoptera of America North of Mexico (Hodges et al., in press) I have returned expultrix and pennsylvanica to their former status as synonymic names based on forms, with their original authorship, and have had to add pennsylvanica Werny, 1966, to the synonymy of E. pudens.
Werny's 1966 work is not easily obtained, and the reader may wish to note that it was reviewed in this journal by J. C. E. Riotte (1969, J. Lepid. Soc. 23:101).
Douglas C. Ferguson, Systematic Entomology Laboratory, IIBill, Agricultural Research Service, U.S.D.A., % U.S. National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. 20560.