A Russian scientist from the MISIS University of Science and Technology, together with colleagues from Vilnius and Barnaul (Altai University), discovered a new species of ribbon butterfly from the erebit family while examining the ebid collection in the World Insect Gallery. He called it Catocala duda. It is distributed in the northwestern province of Yunnan, China. This was reported to socialbites.ca at NUST MISIS.
First, the authors identified two examples of the collection as Catocala lara. C.lara is a large, characteristic-looking plumage (also called girdle because of its particular coloration) commonly found in deciduous forests in the Russian Far East, Korea, Japan, and China. But scientists, after carefully studying butterflies, realized that this is a species previously unknown to science.
An additional clear example was in the research collection of Sergei Didenko, Head of the Department of Semiconductor Electronics and Semiconductor Physics at the National University of Science and Technology MISIS.
“After carefully comparing the color of the wings of the studied butterflies and the structure of their external organs, it turned out to have many differences from Catocala lara, so my colleagues and I have described them as a new species for science – Catocala duda. Name, World Insect Gallery in Joniskis.” It is named in honor of Juozas Duda, the founder and director of .Lepidopterology (the study of butterflies) is a hobby for me, but I have been publishing about it as much as possible with my colleagues for a long time. On one of my expeditions, a Catocala who was new to the world fauna and later got my name since I caught the didenko type,” Didenko said.
C. duda is superficially similar to C.lara, particularly the larger and broad-winged southern subspecies Catocala lara pallidamajor, but the new species is easily distinguished by its larger size, wider anterior wing, and the presence of only one black spot on the terminal . The hind wing region has five separate vein spots on both subspecies C.lara. The anterior wing length is 41-45 mm in C. duda. The main color is gray with a brown coating. The abdomen is gray with a mixture of brown and whitish scales.
The team has previously discovered several new butterfly species: Catocala katsumii from the Indochina Peninsula and Alphaea stanislava from the erebid family.