First description of the females of Qinorapalaqinlingana Chou & Wang, 1995 (Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae) from Shaanxi and Sichuan Provinces, western China

Abstract Background The family Lycaenidae is a widely distributed and species-rich group with approximately 5300 described species. The rare genus Qinorapala Chou & Wang, with Q.qinlingana Chou & Wang as its type species was established as monotypic. In the original description, Q.qinlingana was described from a male holotype; the female remained unknown. To date, the genus is only recorded from the Qinling Mountains (Shaanxi and Gansu Provinces). In this study, two female specimens, from Shaanxi Province and western Sichuan Province (bordering Yunnan Province) are described and illustrated for the first time. New information Female specimens of Q.qinlingana from Shaanxi and Sichuan are described for the first time. The species' distribution is updated and a distribution map is provided.


Introduction
The family Lycaenidae (common name: gossamer-winged butterflies) is a widely distributed and species-rich group with about 5300 described species (Pierce et al. 2002).As the second largest family of Papilionoidea, this group includes many model animals and also several pests, which jointly play important roles in diverse ecosystems (Sharma and Sharma 2021).Most adults of the group are small and brightly coloured with metallic iridescence on the uppersides (Shou et al. 2006).
The monotypic genus Qinorapala Chou & Wang includes only the rare type species Q. qinlingana Chou & Wang.In the original description, Q. qinlingana was described from a male holotype; females were unknown.To date, the genus is only recorded from the Qinling Mountains (Shaanxi and Gansu Provinces).
In this study, two female specimens from Shaanxi Province and western Sichuan Province (bordering Yunnan Province) are described and illustrated for the first time.Kimura 2parameter (K2P) distances between mitochondrial COI barcode region sequences were calculated.A distribution map of the species is provided.

Morphological comparison
The specimens from Sichuan Province were photographed using an interchangeable lens digital camera Sony A7M2 digital SLR camera with a Laowa 100 mm macro lens.Final plates were prepared in Adobe Photoshop CC (adobe.com).To study the female genitalia, the abdomens were taken from the specimens and placed into a 1.5 ml microcentrifuge tube, then soaked in 10% potassium hydroxide solution at room temperature for about 24 hours.After dissection, the genitalia were then transferred to 80% glycerol for 12 h to render them transparent.

Molecular phylogenetic analysis
DNA extraction, PCR amplification and sequencing follows Ge et al. (2023).The forward primer LepF (5'-ATTCAACCAATCATAAAGATATTGG-3') and reverse primer LepR (5'-TAAACTTCTGGATGTCCAAAAAATCA-3') employed in Lukhtanov et al. (2009) were used in this study.The phylogeny was reconstructed using the Neighbour-Joining method by Mega11, with 500 replications of bootstrap to test the phylogeny (Tamura et al. 2021).Four specimens of Q. qinlingana were selected as ingroups, with three of them newly sequenced in this study (two males from Shaanxi Province and a female from Sichuan), the remaining one being extracted from Kawahara et al. (2023).Sequences of outgroup taxa were selected amongst the mostly closely-related species with COI data on GenBank according to the genus-level phylogeny of Kawahara et al. (2023).All new sequences were deposited in GenBank (BioProject PRJNA967499: accession numbers OR825799-OR825801).

Data resources
Three specimens of Q. qinlingana employed in phylogenetic analysis were from Si-Xun Ge's collection and Shi-Yu Tong's collection (a male from Shaanxi Province belongs to Shi-Yu Tong's collection, another male from Shaanxi and the female from Sichuan belongs to Si-Xun Ge's collection).New sequences were deposited in GenBank (BioProject PRJNA967499: accession numbers OR825799-OR825801).

Diagnosis
Forewing with veins M and R stalked, male with a hair tuft on underside along dorsum.Hind-wing with a short tail at vein CuA and a scent brand in space Sc+R , tornal lobe poorly-developed.Male genitalia with valve not conjoined ventrally.

Description
Female from Sichuan Province (Fig. 1) : Length of forewing 16.5 mm.Upperside (Fig. 1): Fore-and hind-wings with distinct sky-blue iridescence, forewing with veins brownish, partly suffused with blue scales; post-discal band brownish, weakly developed; median band faint and narrow, extended to space Cu .Dark brownish border broadening at apex rather developed, from costal to tornal angle.Hind-wing ground colour as in forewing with costal margin and outer margin brownish; outer margin with distinct sky-blue marginal band.Tails extremely short; orange tornal spot bright-coloured, distinctly developed in spaces Cu , Cu and M .Underside (Fig. 1): Both wings pale orange coloured, post-discal band and median band pale tangerine with narrower whitish margins.Tornus of hind-wing light orange-coloured, similar to upperside with a tiny black spot in space 2.
Male from Shaanxi Province.Upperside (Fig. 3): Both wings dark brownish with greyish-blue iridescence.Forewing with metallic patch basally along dorsum, situated in the basal 3/5 of the space Cu , 2A and basal 1/3 of Cu .Hind-wing with costal margin and outer margin dark brownish.Tails short; orange tornal spot bright orange coloured.Underside (Fig. 3): Both wings pale orange coloured, post-discal band and band pale orange with rather broad silvery-white margins.Forewing with black androconia distinctly developed on the posterior margin.Tornus of hind-wing with slight orange hue, with distinct black spots in spaces 1b and 2.
Female from Shaanxi Province (Fig. 4).The head and antennae of the specimen are missing.Upperside (Fig. 4): Both wings with greyish-blue iridescence, forewing with veins brownish, partly suffused with blue scales; post-discal band brownish, distinctly developed; median band distinct and broad, extended to space 2. Dark brownish border broadening at apex rather developed, from costal to tornal angle.Hind-wing with  First description of the females of Qinorapala qinlingana Chou &amp; Wang, ... costal margin and outer margin brownish; margin with greyish-blue marginal band.Tails short; orange tornal spot dark-coloured, present in spaces 1b, 2 and 3. Underside (Fig. 4): Both wings pale yellowish coloured, post-discal band and median band pale orange with rather broad silvery-white margins.Tails black; tornus of hindwing with slight orange hue, with distinct black spots in spaces 1b and 2.

Taxon discussion
The female specimen described in this study shows apomorphic morphological characters that prove conspecificity with the male holotype, as the forewing with veins M and R stalked; hind-wing with an extremely short tail and whitish or silvery-white margins of post-discal band and median band.The Neighbour-Joining phylogenetic analysis, based on partial sequences of COI (Fig. 6), also confirms that the female specimen and the male specimens belong to the same species, because the four specimens of Q. qinlingana were clearly defined as monophyletic with high bootstrap support and the branch length of all Q. qinlingana samples is 0, indicating that there is no genetic difference between samples.

Notes
Before this study, there were fewer than a dozen known specimens of Q. qinlingana and females of the species were not described.Here, we first described the female of Q. qinlingana and provided its distribution information (Fig. 7).There are minor morphological differences in specimens from Sichuan and Shaanxi.The colour of wings and the shape of discal and median bands: in the specimen from Sichuan with both bands narrower, margins on the underside narrower and whitish, while in the specimen from Shaanxi, broad and silvery white.The tails: in the Sichuan specimen extremely short, but in the Shaanxi specimen, comparatively long.The tornal spot: the Sichuan specimen with tornal spot large and bright-coloured, while in the Shaanxi First description of the females of Qinorapala qinlingana Chou &amp; Wang, ... specimen, comparatively small and dark.However, is no visible difference in female genitalia between the two specimens and no difference on partial sequences of COI between specimens from Shaanxi and Sichuan, so we treat them as the same taxon.

Figure 6 .
Figure 6.The Neighbour-Joining phylogenetic tree of the Q. qinlingana.Values at nodes indicate the bootstrap values.