Forewing with veins M₁ and R₄₊₅ stalked, male with a hair tuft on underside along dorsum. Hind-wing with a short tail at vein CuA₂ and a scent brand in space Sc+R₁, tornal lobe poorly-developed. Male genitalia with valve not conjoined ventrally.

West China (Shaanxi, Gansu, Sichuan).

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 Cu₁. 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 Cu₂, Cu₁ and M₁. 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.

Figure 1.  

Female of Qinorapala qinlingana Chou & Wang, 1995 collected 8-10 km south of Bendu township (along National Highway 215), Derong County, Sichuan, China: upperside (A) and underside (B).

Female genitalia (Fig. 2) with papillae anales highly sclerotised; posterior apophyses long and slender; anterior apophyses acute; ostium nearly round. Ductus bursae moderately sclerotised; corpus bursae dentoliva-shaped.

Figure 2.  

Female genitalia of Q. qinlingana from Sichuan: lateral view (A) and dorsal view (B).

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 Cu₂, 2A and basal 1/3 of Cu₁. 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 median 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.

Figure 3.  

Male of Q. qinlingana Chou & Wang, 1995 collected in Huangguan Township, Ningshan County, Shaanxi, China: upperside (A) and underside (B).

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 costal margin and outer margin brownish; outer 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 hind-wing with slight orange hue, with distinct black spots in spaces 1b and 2.

Figure 4.  

Female of Q. qinlingana Chou & Wang, 1995 collected in Jialing River Source Scenic Spot, Baoji City, Shaanxi, China: upperside (A) and underside (B).

Female genitalia (Fig. 5) with papillae anales highly sclerotised; posterior apophyses long and slender; lamella antevaginalis and lamella postvaginalis not distinctly sclerotised; anterior apophyses acute; ostium broad and round. Ductus bursae highly sclerotised; corpus bursae dentoliva-shaped.

Figure 5.  

Female genitalia of Q. qinlingana from Shaanxi: lateral view (A) and dorsal view (B).

West China (Shaanxi, Gansu, Sichuan)

The female specimen described in this study shows apomorphic morphological characters that prove conspecificity with the male holotype, as the forewing with veins M₁ and R₄₊₅ 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.

Figure 6.  

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

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 specimen, comparatively small and dark. However, there 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 7.  

Distribution map of Q. qinlingana Chou & Wang, 1995. Map of China from http://bzdt.ch.mnr.gov.cn/index.html.