An enigmatic new species of the genus Catarhoe (Lepidoptera: Geometridae: Larentiinae) from Kyrgyzstan and taxonomic notes to the genus

The paper presents a new species of geometrid moth of the genus Catarhoe Herbulot, 1951 from Kyrgyzstan, and offers a concise taxonomic review of the genus based on existing literature and on an analysis of COI barcode mitochondrial DNA fragment in Epirrhoini. A new species and new monotypic subgenus are described: Catarhoe (Hyporhoe subgen. nov.) narynensis sp. nov. The species is distinguished by a unique set of characters in the male genitalia, which markedly differs from those of other congeneric species, and has significant genetic distances from the rest of the Catarhoe spp. but not exceeding genetic distances into the genus at whole.

The current species composition of the genus Catarhoe has been clarified and includes 13 species. Taxonomic status of Catarhoe nyctichroa (Hampson, 1912), Catarhoe arachne hissarica Viidalepp, 1988, and “ Catarhoe semnana ” sensu Kemal et al. (2020) requires clarification. A high level of morphological and genetic diversity of the genus Catarhoe was revealed.

The genetic distances between the morphological groups of Catarhoe spp. are comparable to those between the genera of Epirrhoini. The generic name Microcalcarifera Inoue, 1982, is revived from its synonymy with Catarhoe. The genus includes type species Microcalcarifera obscura (Butler, 1878: 450) (Cidaria), comb. rev., and two subspecies: Microcalcarifera obscura fecunda (Swinhoe, 1891), comb. rev. and Microcalcarifera obscura multilinea (Hampson, 1891), comb. rev.