A new Orthosia Ochsenheimer, 1816 species from Iran (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae, Hadeninae)

A new Orthosia species, O. habeleri sp. nov., is described from Iran (Kerman, SE Zagros Mts), and compared with the allopatric, closely related species, O. manfredi Hreblay, 1994. The subgenus Orthosia and its three main lineages are characterised; the primary types of the taxa described by Staudinger and Hreblay & Plante are illustrated; the photographs of the male genitalia of the holotypes of O. manfredi Hreblay, 1994, O. ariuna Hreblay, 1991, O. faqiri Hreblay & Plante, 1994 and O. feda Hreblay & Plante, 1994, and the lectotype of O. incerta var. pallida Staudinger, 1888 are illustrated for the first time.


Introduction
The genus Orthosia Ochsenheimer, 1816 is a large Holarctic-Oriental group of the tribe Orthosiini (Noctuidae, Hadeninae), comprising more than sixty species, and the majority of them occurring in eastern and south-eastern Asia. Five species of the genus Orthosia (s.l.) are currently known from Iran: O. cruda ([Denis & Schiffermüller], 1775), O. gracilis ([Denis & Schiffermüller], 1775), O. imitabilis Hreblay, 1993, O. incerta (Hufnagel, 1766 and O. sordescens Hreblay, 1993. The subgeneric taxa accepted in the most recent literature (Ronkay et al. 2001;Ronkay et al. 2010;Volynkin and Titov 2014, etc.) are of a provisional nature before the complete revision of the Holarctic-Oriental generic group (and the whole tribe) is completed. The above-mentioned works consider most of the formerly described supraspecific taxa as subgenera within Orthosia (s. l.), opposing the concepts of Berio (1980) and Beck (1996Beck ( , 1999aBeck ( , 1999b. The subgenus Orthosia sensu Ronkay et al. (2010) includes altogether three species-groups mentioned below in the Synopsis and an integrative revision of the Orthosia generic complex may distinguish all these three species-groups to be at the subgeneric level.
The tribe Orthosiini, and within it the genus Orthosia, is conspicuously heterogeneous in external and genital morphology throughout the Palaearctic and Oriental regions. The great majority of the genera and species of the tribe occur in the Himalayan region, more precisely, in the Himalayan-Sino-Pacific region, which includes the main chains of the Himalaya from Pakistan to northern Indochina and the eastern frontier of the Tibetan Plateau, together with the western and central Chinese mountainous regions, Taiwan and the southern parts of Japan and continental Pacific areas (see Sugi 1955Sugi , 1986Poole 1989;Chang 1991;Chen 1999;Hreblay and Ronkay 1997;Kononen-ko et al. 1998;Ronkay 2000, 2002;Titov et al. 2017). It is worth noting that certain areas of Eurasia, especially the western Mediterranean and the arid Central Asian territories, are conspicuously poor in Orthosiini species (Ronkay et al. 2001).
The bulk of the taxa belonging to Orthosia were recently described (Hreblay 1991(Hreblay , 1993(Hreblay , 1994Yoshimoto 1993;Hreblay and Plante 1994;Ronkay 1998, 1999;Ronkay et al. 2010;Saldaitis et al. 2011, etc.). The subgenus Orthosia includes 11 described species (see Ronkay et al. 2001;Volynkin and Titov 2014), only two of which occur in Europe and NW Africa while the majority of the species are Central Asiatic, inhabiting steppe-like habitats and rather dry higher montane biotopes. This habitat preference is not common in the genus Orthosia; most prefer more humid and most often woody biotopes.
In the first decade of the 21 st century, two specimens of a curious species of Orthosiini were collected in the Kerman area of the southern Zaghros Mts and later examined independently by the authors. These specimens resemble externally mostly certain western Himalayan species of the noctuid genus Harutaeographa Yoshimoto, 1993, especially the dark examples of H. bidui Hreblay & Plante, 1996, H. rama Hreblay & Plante, 1996and H. brahma Hreblay & Ronkay, 1998, except that the pectination of the male antenna of the Iranian species is quite different from those of the three Harutaeographa taxa. The study of the genitalia revealed, rather surprisingly, that these moths represent an unknown member of the Orthosia incerta species-group, displaying most of the apomorphic male genital features of this lineage, but with easily recognisable specific differences. The male genitalia of the subgenus Orthosia differ conspicuously from those of Harutaeographa in the configuration of the aedeagus and the vesica (see . The new species is described below, in comparison with its closest relatives.

Morphology and material
Our study is based on the examination of a large set of material of the taxa belonging to the subgenus Orthosia, including the type-specimens of all but one species. The external and genitalic features of O. ronkayorum Volynkin & Titov, 2014 were evaluated from the text and illustrations of the original description. The material was set and dried in a conventional way. Genitalia preparations followed standard techniques for Noctuoidea, including the eversion of the vesica.

Photographic documentation
Representative material of the taxa of the subgenus Orthosia was studied and photographed. The type material was examined in the Hungarian Natural History Museum (HNHM, Budapest), the Museum für Naturkunde -Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science (MfN, Berlin), and the Natural History Museum (NHMUK, London), and the private collections of Márton Hreblay and Gábor Ronkay (Budapest). The habitus of the specimens was photographed with a Nikon D90 camera; the images of the genitalia slides were taken with a Nikon Eclipse 80i photomicroscope with a Nikon DS-Fi2 digital camera. All images published in this article are preserved in the photographic catalogue of the Heterocera Research Team, Budapest.
The genitalia of the three groups in the subgenus Orthosia are rather well illustrated, see for instance the works of Sugi (1955Sugi ( , 1986; Ronkay et al. (2010); Volynkin and Titov (2014)

Systematic part
The first really detailed description of the major lineages of Orthosia s. l. was published in Italian by Berio (1985). A general characterisation of the subgenus Orthosia Ochsenheimer, 1816 was first provided in English by Hreblay and Plante (1994), subsequently by Ronkay et al. (2001); only a brief summary of the main group features is presented here. The subgenus Orthosia comprises medium-sized or rather large species (wingspan 30-45 mm), with elongated, relatively narrow, apically pointed forewings; forewing pattern can be variously expressed, often blurred, or rather sharply marked, with distinct crosslines and orbicular and reniform stigmata; colouration very variable; the individual variation is remarkable in all known species. The most typical external morphological feature of the subgenus is the biserrate male antenna (with long, fasciculate cilia), its pectination is shorter than in the other major groups of Orthosia. It is worth to mention that the female antenna is not filiform as in most other groups of Orthosia s.l. but, minutely or shortly, biserrate, with long sparse fasciculate cilia.
The subgenus Orthosia is a rather compact species group consisting of three main lineages, the O. incerta-, the O. picata-, and the O. evanida-lineages. This subgenus is still a challenging complex from a taxonomic point of view, containing externally often confusingly similar species, while the genitalia of both sexes display clearly recognisable distinctive features. The genitalia of both sexes do not show distinctive variation within a species, despite the great individual variation in the external features; even the Trans-Palaearctic O. (O.) incerta has actually only one recognised subspecies, the Japanese ssp. incognita.
The members of the O. incerta-lineage differ externally from those of the O. picata-lineage mainly in their larger size, sometimes also by their the more blurred forewing pattern while the genitalia show differences in the general features, e.g. the shape of the uncus, the configuration of the distal part of the valva, the length of the pollex and the thorn of the carina (males), the shape of the sclerotization of the antrum and the shape and thickness of ductus bursae (females). The members of the O. evanida-lineage are externally rather similar due to their rather large size, broad forewings with distinct antemedial, postmedial and subterminal lines and well-marked, large orbicular and reniform stigmata. This lineage appears more heterogeneous, however, by the configuration of their male genitalia (see Ronkay et al. 2010), especially the valval shapes of the three known species appear as strikingly different from each other while the features of the aedeagus and the vesica clearly demonstrate their close relationship.  (Figs 27-30) by the 1) subapically stronger dilated, apically more tapering uncus (it is the widest medially while the broadest part is the apical section in the two close relatives); 2) the more elongated valva with distally less curved costa; 3) the larger and apically broader, rounded cucullus; 4) the basally straighter, medially less curved, rather arched thorn-like ampulla; and 5) the much stronger, longer and thicker erect part of the harpe (clasper). The rather straight aedeagus and the shortened carinal thorn of O. habeleri is closer to those of O. manfredi than to O. incerta but the basal part of the carinal thorn of the new species has a broader junction plate and is more divergent from the main tube of the vesica than in the other two relatives. The aedeagus of O. incerta is longer and more arched than in the two other sister taxa and the carinal thorn is remarkably longer than in O. habeleri and O. manfredi.
Description. Wingspan 36-37 mm (holotype: 36 mm; paratype 37 mm), length of forewing 16 mm. Ground colour of the two known specimens conspicuously different (see the Figs 1-3), varying from ochreous-brown to smoky-greyish with black irroration. Eyes large, hairy; palpi rather slender; male antennae biserrate with short fasciculate cilia. Pubescence of head, collar, tegulae and thorax unicolorous. Forewing relatively narrow, apically pointed, outer margin slightly sinuous.    Forewing markings very variable in the two individuals, elements of noctuid pattern less distinct, basal two-thirds of costal margin paler than ground colour; basal dash present, short, black; antemedial line obsolescent; postmedial line better visible, dark blackish-grey; median area somewhat darker than ground colour. Orbicular and reniform stigmata present, their filling slightly paler than median area, their outlines rather distinct, blackish-grey; claviform stigma obsolete. Subterminal line distinct, waved, defined by dark grey scales in tornal and median areas; terminal line fine, whitish-ochreous; terminal area and fringes as ground colour, fringes finely spotted with darker scales and fine blackish medial line. Hindwings whitish-ochreous, suffused strongly with darker ochreous-brown to brownish grey; discal spot and tornal patch darker brown-grey; terminal line fine, dark grey-brown; fringe somewhat darker than ground colour; abdomen dark brown, without distinctly coloured lateral ridges and dorsal crest, basal abdominal brush organ ("trifine brush organ") absent.
Female genitalia. Unknown. Bionomics and distribution. The species is known from the regions of high elevation of the southern Zaghros Mts (the two specimens were collected above 2200 m elevation). The biology is poorly known, but the flight period is in late spring (April-May), similar to several other species of the genus.
Etymology. The new species is dedicated to Heinz Habeler (Graz, Austria), who was the mentor providing enthusiastic help and motivation to the first author.