Male Genitalia Muscles in the Afrotropical Subfamily Lipteninae (Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae)

Abstract

The muscles of the male genitalia were studied for the first time in representatives of 3 tribes of the Afrotropical endemic subfamily Lipteninae (Lycaenidae): Larinopoda tera (Hewitson, 1873) (Liptenini), Cephetola viridana (Joicey and Talbot, 1921) (Epitolini), Pentila tachyroides (Dewitz, 1879), P. tropicalis (Boisduval, 1847), P. umangiana Aurivillus, 1898, and Ornipholidotos amieti angulata Libert, 2005 (Pentilini). The essential differences in the genital muscles between the tribe Pentilini on the one hand and the tribes Lipteninini and Epitolini on the other are found. The tribes Liptenini and Epitolini are characterized by preservation of the characters initial for the large taxa of Papilionomorpha; the only apomorphic similarity between them, which arisen independently, is established. This apomorphy is the attachment of the only pair of aedeagus retractors m7(6) not to the zonal area of the aedeagus, as at the initial state for lepidopterans, but to its coecum penis. In the tribe Pentilini, along with the known modifications in the structure of the genital skeleton, the following apomorphic changes in muscles are established: reduction of 2 pairs of valvar muscles m5(7) and m8(3), a shift of the attachment of hypertrophied valvar adductors m4 onto a considerable part of the surface of the tegumen, and the splitting of aedeagus protractors m6(5) into 2 independent muscles. Autapomorphies of the musculoskeletal structures of Pentila Westwood, [1851] and Ornipholidotos Bethune-Baker, 1914 (Pentilini) are described. Synapomorphies in the structure of the genital muscles in the Lipteninae examined have not been found.