Hypoprepia miniata, H. fucosa, and everything in between: A deep dive into this notorious lichen moth species complex

Hypoprepia fucosa and H. miniata (Arctiinae: Lithosiini: Cisthenina) are often used to investigate evolutionary and ecological aspects of lichen feeding. However, the two species can be very difficult to distinguish from each other and their taxonomic history has been quite convoluted. This is due to short species descriptions based on wing colors and patterns which were derived from a handful of individuals. Hypoprepia fucosa is described as having yellow and pink in the forewing where as in contrast, H. miniata is described as having only crimson red. However, these aposematic colors exhibit a fair amount of intraspecific variation leading to similarities between the two species. This has also led to several subspecies and undescribed phenotypes, such as orange or only yellow in the forewing, further complicate the matter. We therefore investigated the complex utilizing molecular and morphological techniques while considering geographical distributions. As the use of CO1 for taxonomy and species delimitation has recently been under debate, we tested it against our recently developed AHE probe set in addressing this complex. We additionally evaluated and characterized external and internal genitalic morphology along with distributional patterns for each phenotype and species we considered. From this we have delimited and characterized the members of this complex and here present our species delimitations, including new species, in a hope that we can better utilize the group moving forward.