Manduca rustica cubana (Wood, 1915)

General distribution. Cuba and Dominican Republic

Distribution in the DR. Widespread throughout the country (Fig 1. B).

Habitat. A regular species on the coast, much more common in wooded areas, at low and medium elevations.

Host plants. The caterpillar consumes a very large range of plants from the following families: Verbenaceae, Boraginaceae, Solanaceae, Bignoniaceae, Convolvulaceae, Oleaceae, Malvaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Lamiaceae, Aquifoliaceae and Nyctaginaceae.

Material examined.

Hodecek: Valle Nuevo National Park: 18°53'00"N 70°33'56.5"W, 660 m, 7/2021, 7 ♂, leg. J. Hodecek; Valle Nuevo National Park: 18°53'10"N 70°33'44"W, 650 m, 6/2023, 3 ♂, leg. J. Hodecek; Jaragua National Park: 17°47'32"N 71°27'38"W, 123 m, 5/2024, 1 ♂, leg. J. Hodecek; Valle Nuevo National Park: 18°53'00"N 70°33'56.5"W, 660 m, 5/2024, 1 ♂, leg. J. Hodecek; La Romana caves: 18°22'22"N 68°48'48"W, 5 m, 5/2024, 1 ♂, leg. J. Hodecek.

Haxaire: Pedernales, trail from Pedernales to Los Arroyos pk 6: 18°07'28"N 71°43'33"W, 367 m, 12/08/2007, 3 ♂ 1 ♀, leg. Jean Haxaire & Odile Paquit; Hydroelectric Plant Hoyo de Piño, Monseñor Noel, Bonao: 18°52'59"N 70°29'55"W, 399 m, 13/04/2016, 2 ♂, leg. Jean Haxaire; Hydroelectric Plant Hoyo de Piño, Monseñor Noel, Bonao: 18°52'59"N 70°29'55"W, 453 m, 19/02/2017, 1 ♀, leg. J. Haxaire & Odile Paquit; Loma de Blanco, before the Hydroelectric Plant Hoyo de Piño, Monseñor Noel, Bonao: 18°53'05"N 70°30'11"W, 420 m, 27/02/2019, 4 ♂, leg. J. Haxaire & Odile Paquit.

Remarks

Assigning specimens from the Dominican Republic to one or another subspecies of M. rustica is challenging. All M. rustica from Canada to Argentina fall under the same DNA barcode BIN, AAA4569 (BOLD Systems, accessed April 2025). However, populations from the Caribbean, comprising specimens from Jamaica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and the Lesser Antilles, form a slightly distinct cluster. They cannot be distinguished by their barcodes but they differ in habitus.

The population from the Lesser Antilles (Guadeloupe, Martinique), Manduca rustica harterti (Rothschild, 1894), reaches notably large sizes and the forewing upperside has a greyish coloration with little contrast, often tending toward beige in older specimens (Fig 8. C). The Jamaican population is somewhat similar but smaller and more contrasting, and the Cuban population, M. rustica cubana (Wood, 1915), is also small but displays a striking black-and-white pattern (Fig 8. A).

The Dominican Republic population was described by Gehlen (1928) as M. rustica dominicana because although it shared the same pattern it was larger than specimens from Jamaica. However, Carcasson & Heppner (1996) treated dominicana as a junior synonym of cubana, a decision with which Kitching & Cadiou (2000) concurred after study of specimens in the collections of the Natural History Museum, London, and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh. These authors noted that size alone is not always reliable and that some Cuban specimens are as large as those from the Dominican Republic. Haxaire (2016) also treated the Dominican Republic populations as subspecies cubana.

While we could accept that viewpoint, our current perspective is that if harterti is maintained as a separate subspecies on the Lesser Antilles, it would be almost equally justifiable to revalidate subspecies dominicana for the Dominican Republic, as it is indeed generally larger than its Cuban counterparts (Fig 8. B). However, for now, we will continue to treat Dominican Republic insects as subspecies cubana, but revalidation of subspecies dominicana is an option that we will consider in future.