Sauris mouliniei Legrand 1971, comb. n.

Sauris mouliniei (Legrand, 1971) comb. n.

(Figs 1–7)

Episteira mouliniei Legrand, 1971: 81; Gerlach & Matyot, 2006: 66. Episteria mouliniei Legrand, 1971 inadv. err.: 81, Fig. 1.

Material examined. 1♂, “ Seychelles, Praslin Island; near the Vallée de Mai Nature Reserve [4 º20'00''S; 55º44'15''E]; ~ 170 m a.s.l.; mid-altitude forest dominated by the coco-de-mer palm (Lodoicea maldivica); on the trunk of endemic Seychelles tree Northea hornei; 5.1.2013, Bolotov leg.”. Deposited in the collection of Biological Museum of Institute of Ecological Problems of the North of Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Arkhangelsk, Russia (IEPN).

Description. Male morphology: forewing length 14 mm (Figs. 1–2). Forewing is large; apex angular; with termen cleft near tornus between veins CuA1 and A. Dorsum is winding, angular subtornally. The hindwing is small, not reaching the tornus of forewing, lobed marginally and folded between Sc+R and Rs+M1. The dorsal lobe is small (one fourth of the hindwing length), re-folded dorsally. Forewing’s venation has typical larentiine character (Viidalepp 2011) and is characterised by the presence of two accessory cells between radial veinlets; vein R2 anastomoses with R1 and then with R 3-5 in a point of origin of R5; M1 begins from the accessory cell. Hindwings venation, principally, as shown for the males of Sauris species by Dugdale (1980: Figs. 27, 29–40); veins Sc and R fused; Rs and M1 also fused; M2 always present (a larentiine character); M3 and CuA1 fused; CuA2 stump-like and perpendicular to anal margin of wing. Head with frons distinctly narrower than eye diameter. Labial palpi are stout, upright, long (over twice eye diameter), underside ciliate (with scarce short ciliae). Proboscis is well developed. Antennae are long, thicker subapically. Hind tibia with thin scale tuft (Fig. 3). Abdomen is long, with small setal patches laterally on the 6th and 8th segments (Fig. 4). Male markings: Head is pale green; eyes of living specimen also green, but brown after drying. Vertex scales are of the same colour. Labial palpi are green with white border and apex. Thorax (including extreme base of forewings) is dorsally green, underside is pale grey; with a row of whitish scales towards thorax. Abdomen is dorsally whitish grey with green spots. End of abdomen is hiding a tuft of long white hair-scales. The forewing is darkly fasciated, its ground coloured in deep green and black patterns (Fig. 1); there are three extremely broad, black transverse bands at postbasal, medial and postmedial areas. Marginal one third of the forewings is covered by three thick, black and waved transverse lines, a broad black spot between veins M1 and M3 and a white unclear ovate path, subtornally. Basal part of the forewing has one thick black line from three black spots between veins. Marginal area is green, with black triangular dots at vein ends.

Fringe short, greyish green. The hindwing has uniformly light grey coloration, but its margin is hiding a tuft of long darker blackish grey hair-scales. Underside of both wings are dull grey, but the forewing is darker at subapical and apical areas, with small black dot above marginal subtornal cleft (Fig. 2). General morphology and marking of male specimen are similar to female (Legrand 1971: 81, Fig. 1), but female is larger (length of forewing 19 mm), forewing without termen cleft, hindwing is not lobed. Male genitalia: typical Sauris pattern (Figs. 5–6). The uncus is triangular, tapering thin needle-like, a little longer than socii lobes; diaphragmal pouch is not exceeding beyond vinculum. Socii are stout and rounded; declinate on the ends. The valve tapers towards the base; apical part of valve expanded. Phallus is short and thick; curved dorso-ventrally. Based on genitalia, male secondary sexual characters and the molecular data, the taxon is transferred to the genus Sauris Guenée, 1857, comb. n. S. mouliniei belongs to “ hirundinata [malaca] group” of Sauris species, which includes the most species of the genus (Dugdale 1980).

Molecular data. Molecular analysis was performed in the IEPN (purification and PCR) and the Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (sequencing on ABI PRISM 3730). We extracted genomic DNA from a single leg of the dry male specimen using proteinase K and phenol, as described in Sambrook & Russel (2001). 768 bp of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I gene (COI) were amplified and sequenced using primers LCO1490F (Folmer 1994) and C1-N-2329R (Simon et al. 1994). The sequence was submitted to NCBI Genbank (accession no. KF704143). Systematic position of the sequence was retrieved with BOLD systems COI FULL DATABASE (includes records without species designation). The most similar sequences belong to Australian S. malaca specimens (see Table 1).

Distribution and biology. The species is endemic to the granitic Seychelles. It was noted for Mahé and Silhouette (Gerlach & Matyot 2006), and now occurs on Praslin Island, Inner Seychelles. Recorded from sea-level to 300 m alt.

(Legrand 1971; Gerlach & Matyot 2006). The male specimen was found in a mid-altitude forest, dominated by the cocode-mer palm (Lodoicea maldivica) (Fig. 7). This site presents a part of the largest endemic palm forest massif of Praslin Island. The species is extremely rare and just three specimens are collected at the moment. Immature stages and caterpillar host plants are unknown. Known species of Sauris are distributed in the Indo-Australian region and African region; the range of the genus extends from S. Japan and the N.E. Himalayas to tropical Australia (Dugdale 1980; Holloway 1997). The genus includes many endemic species which were described from the small islands (Dugdale 1980). S. mouliniei is the westernmost representative among described species in the genus.