Distributional area of Euceriodes pallada (Lepidoptera; Erebidae).
One of the main purposes of Inaturalist is know where the species occur. This information can help further scientific works as endangered evaluation, ecological parameters and identifications (It's easier and faster identify an organism comparing them with the species that is know to occur in the area or neighborhood) for example.
Eucereon pallada was first described by Druce 1906: https://archive.org/details/s7annalsmagazine18londuoft/page/80/mode/1up?view=theater . Hampson, 1914 also described the species: https://archive.org/details/catalogueoflepid01brit/page/331/mode/1up?view=theater and made a plate (fig. 30): https://archive.org/details/catalogueoflepid12brit/page/n85/mode/2up?view=theater . Travasso 1961 transferred the species to genus Euceriodes.
To uncover the distributional area of Euceriodes pallada I compared the Hampson's plate with Arctiinae pictures on the site Inaturalis from Rio Grande do Sul state, where this species is know to occur (Ferro & Teston 2009). After recognizing one picture as Euceriodes pallada in Rio Grande do Sul ( https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/111551411 ) I expanded the search for the brazilian states of Santa Catarina, Paraná, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Mato Grosso do Sul. Further search was done in Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay.
Eucereon pallada was found in the brazilian states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná and São Paulo. Also, the species was found in the argentinian province of Missiones. The specimens was often misidentified as Eucereon genus. Some variation in shape and lenght of the forewing spots was found. Furthermore, two variation in forewing color was found, whitish: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146778966 and greyish: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/148963849 .
The species Euceriodes pallada was previously known to occur in the brazilian states of Paraná (Druce, 1906 and Hampson, 1914) and Rio Grande do Sul (Ferro & Teston 2009). This work can be the first known evidence for the states of Santa Catarina (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/65832190) and São Paulo (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/153374088 ; https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/74928903), and in Argentina (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/107150830 ; https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/73006580 ; https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/1775552).
Here I treated the variation in the forewing spots as populational variation or lost scales. For the color variation in the forewing I propose sexual dimorphism hypotesis to be tested.
Bibliography:
Ferro & Teston, 2009. Composição de espécies de Arctiidae (Lepidoptera) no sul do Brasil: relação entre tipos de vegetação e entre a configuração espacial do hábitat. Revista Brasileira de entomologia 53 (2): 278-286.
Travassos, L. (1961) Contribuição ao conhecimento das espécies incluidas no gênero Eucereon (Lepidoptera-Arctiidae). Atas de Sociedade de Biologia do Rio de Janeiro, 5 (3), 9–10.
