Netelia (Paropheltes) Cameron 1907

Subgenus Paropheltes Cameron, 1907 Paropheltes Cameron, 1907: 1011. Type species: Paropheltes flavolineatus Cameron, 1907. By monotypy. Diagnosis. Most species of this subgenus can be distinguished from other subgenera in having the combination of the following characters: occipital carina weak, present at least laterally; mesopleuron polished, minutely punctate; hind tarsal claw with pectens not extending beyond its apex; fore wing 1 cu-a slightly basad, opposite, or slightly or far distad to M & RS; scutellum with lateral carina variable, from absent to extend to the apex. Konishi (1996 a) stated that the heterogeneous male genitalia structures of this subgenus cannot be use as diagnostic characters of this subgenus. However, several species been classified within Paropheltes or other subgenera make the subgeneric boundary ambiguous: some specimens of N. (Paro.) fulginosa Konishi, 1996 has its occipital carina completely absent, which makes these specimens difficult to distinguish from species of subgenus Longiterebates; N. (N.) fulvator Delrio, 1971 has its scutellum with lateral carina only extending to 0.3 of its length and therefore could be confused with Paropheltes (as other members of subgenus Netelia have lateral carina of scutellum extending to the apex); some species have fore wing 1 cu-a opposite to M & RS which can be confused with species of the subgenus Prosthodocis. Species included. This subgenus comprises 46 valid species (Bennett 2015). This study first reports this subgenus from Taiwan, comprising five species. Among them, there are four described species and one new species. Distribution. Worldwide, the genus comprises 11 species in the Nearctic, 26 in the Palearctic, six in the Oriental, five in the Afrotropical, and one in the Australasia regions (Bennett 2015; Yu et al. 2016). No species have been described from the Neotropical region (Bennett 2015). Bionomics. The species of this subgenus mainly use Geometridae, especially Eupithecia species, as host (Brischke 1880; Morley 1915). Host records from Drepanidae (Brischke 1880) and Gelechiidae (Aubert et al. 1984) were considered unreliable (Bennett 2015). Remarks. Townes (1939) subdivided this subgenus into five species groups: N. (Paro.) flavolineata, N. (Paro.) barberi, N. (Paro.) tarsata, N. (Paro.) radiata, and N. (Paro.) ciliata species groups. The classification was based on various morphological characters including the length of the lateral carina of the scutellum, the presence of the propodeal sublateral crest, the position of 1 cu-a and M & RS, the margin of the pad, the length of the ovipositor, and the color pattern of the mesosoma. Subsequently, Kaur and Jonathan (1979) established two additional species groups, N. (Paro.) thomsoni and N. (Paro.) guptai species groups, based on the presence of a submarginal spine on the gonostyle, as well as the shape of the gonostyle and the characters of the pad and brace. Previous morphology-based phylogenetic studies (Coronado-Rivera 2009) have shown this subgenus to be polyphyletic, likely due to the highly heterogeneous morphology of the gonostyle. The COI phylogeny in this study (Fig. 5 B) also supports the polyphyly of this subgenus.