First Identifications of Hypercompe kinkelini.
Hypercompe is a genus that is easy to identify at genus level because of their thorax and wing rings. But it can be hard to identify Hypercompe at species level. In fact, Inaturalist brazilian observations of Hypercompe have around 10% at research grade level of identification,
Hypercompe kinkelini was described by Burmeister, 1880. I was not able to find the original description but I found a description of the species by Hampson, 1901 (https://archive.org/details/catalogueoflepid03brituoft/page/373/mode/1up?view=theater) and a plate (https://archive.org/details/tudesdentomolo06ober/page/n156/mode/1up?view=theater).
To unveil how to identify the species of Hypercompe in the brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul I started studying what species is know to occur in that state. Ferro & Teston, 2009 published a list of the Arctiinae species found in Rio Grande do Sul and 8 Hypercompe species are listed: H. abdominalis, H. brasiliensis, H. cunigunda, H. detecta, H. heterogena, H. indecisa, H. kinkelini and H. orsa.
Based on Hampson description I found an easy character: pinkish white color on thorax and legs. This character is unique for Hypercompe kinkelini at least when compared with the others species found in Rio Grande do Sul.
This was the first identification on the site Inaturalist and the first known photograph of living specimens for the species Hypercompe kinkelini: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/93317841. After search the state of Rio grande do Sul I expand the search in the neighborhood and found a total of 60 observations of Hypercompe kinkelini distributed in the brazilian states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná and São Paulo, and the argentinian provinces of Misiones, Chaco and Buenos Aires.
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.
