Cicada Parasitic Moths From China (Lepidoptera: Epipyropidae)

Species of the family Epipyropidae of Lepidoptera are rare and difficult to be collected due to their ectoparasitic living on their hosts.There is few research on the parasitic moths and their identities have not been solved in China,thus the object of this study is to investigate the biology,describe the morphology,present the differences about various sensilla using scanning electron microscopy(SEM),provide the phylogenetic trees based on mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I(COI)of the cicada parasitic moths hosted on different species of cicadas from China,suggest all specimens found parasitising different species of cicadas in China belong to one species,Epipomponia nawai(Dyar).The main results are as follows:1.Biology and behavioural observations of the parasitic moths from Hyalessa maculaticollis(Motschulsky)and Meimuna opalifera(Walker)in the Tangyu Valley,Meixian County,Shaanxi Province showed that the life-cycle consists of a single generation per year.The subterranean overwintering eggs hatch on July to August(egg stage ~320d),and then pupates(pupal stage ~15d),emergence.Each virgin or copulate female may lay ~200 eggs,suggest that the parthenogenesis or bisexual reproduction in this moth.2.Eggs are horizontal and black in colour.Early-instar larvae are maggot-like;final-instar larvae are eruciform and covered with white waxy secretion.Pupae are hemi-ellipsoid in shape,with yellow head and abdomen and brown thorax.Body of adults is black.3.Seven types of sensilla were identified from the antennae: B?hm bristles(BB),Sensilla squamiformia(SSq),Sensilla trichodea(STr),Sensilla chaetica(SCh),Sensilla basiconica(SBa),Sensilla coeloconica(SCo),and Sensilla auricillica(SAu).Study on morphological structure,distribution and quantitative characters of these sensilla lead to a better understanding of the sexual dimorphism in the parasitic moths.The larvae were with well-developed thoracic legs,prolegs and the spinneret.The A3–A6 prolegs arranged in uniserial circle,while the A10 prolegs arranged in uniodinal penellipse of larvae.Micropylar region concave,with fibrillar ornaments radiated from micropyle;16–20 spiracles arrangedinto a circle around the micropylar region.4.Molecular identification and phylogenetic analyses of 10 populations hosted on different species of cicadas from East Asia and the outgroup Fulgoraecia exigua(Henry)based on the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I(COI)suggest all specimens found to parasitise different species of cicadas in China,and the cicada parasitic moths from South Korea and Japan belong to one species,Epipomponia nawai(Dyar),while Epipomponia oncotympana Yang,1977 is recognised as a junior synonym of E.nawai.Pairwise corrected genetic distances showed the intraspecific genetic distances of E.nawai are 0.000–0.019.The genetic distance between E.nawai and F.exigua are 0.119–0.127,suggest the obviously genetic differentiation among the populations of E.nawai.The divergence time analysis showed that the divergences of E.nawai populations all occurred in the late Pleistocene.The genealogy of E.nawai indicated that the evolution of E.nawai was closely related with the history of geological evolvement occurred in China mainland,the Korean Peninsula and Japan.