Establishment of Eichlinia gen.n. for the Western hemisphere Melittiini (Lepidoptera: Sesiidae), with a catalogue of the genus

Abstract

2015, 2017, 2020; Kallies, 2020]. It was originally erected by Hübner [1816–1826: 128] with the only species Melittia anthedoniformis Hübner, 1819 [“1816”], which was considered to be proposed as a replacement name for Sphinx bombiliformis Stoll, 1782 (= Sphinx bombyliformis Stoll, 1782) — a primary junior homonym of Sphinx bombyliformis Linnaeus, 1758 (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae) [Fletcher, Nye, 1982; Arita, Gorbunov, 1995; Gorbunov, 2017]. Further, M. anthedoniformis turned out to be the junior subjective synonym for Sesia chalciformis Fabricius, 1793 [Hampson, 1892]. Hence, Melittia anthedoniformis Hübner, 1819 [“1816”] (= Sphinx bombyliformis Stoll, 1782 [nec Sphinx bombyliformis Linnaeus, 1758]) = Sesia chalciformis Fabricius, 1793) is the type species and it was fixed by monotypy in accordance with Article 68.3 [ICZN, 1999]. The type locality of Melittia bombyliformis (Stoll, 1782) is “... op de Kust van Coromandel ... (... sur la Côte de Coromandel ...” [Stoll, 1782: 242] or east coast of the Hindustan Peninsula south of the Krishna River Delta to Cape Komorin. The type locality of Sesia chalciformis Fabricius, 1793 was cited in the original description as “Habitat Tranquebariae ...”, that is the town of Tharangambadi on the Coromandel Coast of India. For a reason unclear to me, Hampson [1892: 202] indicates Melittia satyriniformis Hübner 1831 [“1825”] “from N. America” as the type species of the genus Melittia. His point of view was supported by Beutenmüller [1901: 231] and Bartel [1912: 379]. But already in his work on Sesiidae of the Oriental and Afrotropical regions, Hampson [1919: 84] corrected his mistake and rightly indicated the type species of the genus Melittia. Perhaps this fact for a long time prevented the elucidaABSTRACT. A new genus from the tribe Melittiini (Lepidoptera, Sesiidae) is erected from the Western hemisphere: Eichlinia gen.n. The new genus differs from the all known genera of the tribe in the combination of the characters of both male and female genitalia. A key for determination of all genera of the tribe Melittiini is presented. All Nearctic and some Neotropical species of Melittiini are transferred from the genus Melittia to the new one. A preliminary catalogue species of the new genus, which contains updated taxonomic information including the references to the original descriptions, information on name-bearing types, mostly complete bibliographies, data on host plants and current known distribution is provided.