Morphological and molecular taxonomy of Dendrolimus sibiricus Chetverikov stat.rev. and allied lappet moths (Lepidoptera: Lasiocampidae), with description of a new species

Abstract

The populations of the well-known forest pest, Dendrolimus sibiricus Chetverikov, 1908 stat.rev., were sampled in the European foothills of the Ural Mountains, Russia. D. sibiricus is a species distinct from the Japanese taxon D. superans (Butler, 1877). Another taxon from the Southern Urals, taxonomically close to D. pini (Linnaeus), is described here as D. kilmez sp.n. The synthetic female pheromones prepared for D. pini and D. sibiricus attracted equally well all three taxa present, and thus cannot be used to identify these species. The Ural populations of D. sibiricus show differences in external appearance, and as already in the 1840s Eversmann indicated that the species had caused local forest damage, D. sibiricus must be a long-established species in the Ural area. Thus, natural spreading westward of the pest is not to be expected. The five Dendrolimus species of the northern Palaearctic and the male genitalia are illustrated, and the distinguishing characters are listed. Two Matsumura lectotypes are designated.