A review of the genus Deltote Reichenbah, Leipzig, 1817 with description of a new species from China (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae: Eustrotiinae).

Eustrotiinae is a worldwide distributed subfamily of the Noctuidae with approximately up to 700 species in the Old and New World; the members of the subfamily are most diverse in the tropical and subtropical regions. The Eustrotiinae still belongs to the “neglected groups” of the Noctuidae and requires ground revision on generic and specific level systematically. Most genera of Eustrotiinae (in modern concept) were included by early authors to the heterogeneous subfamily Erastrianae (sensu Hampson, 1910) or Acontiinae (sensu Warren, 1914, sensu auctorum). Speidel at al. (1996) first segregated subfamilies Acontiinae, Pseudeustrotiinae, Eustrotiinae, Tytinae and Sinocharinae from Acontiinae (sensu auctorum). Kitching & Rawlins, (1999) divided Acontiinae (sensu auctorum) for Acontiinae and Eustrotiinae. Fibiger and Lafontaine (2005) recognized subfamilies separated by Speidel et al. (1996), extracted subfamily Eublemminae from Acontiinae and placed the genus Tyta Billberg, 1820 to the subfamily Metoponiinae. Holloway (2009) separated the subfamily Aventiinae from the former broad concept of Acontiinae and Eustrotiinae and later (Holloway 2011) placed it into the tribes Aventiini, Araeopteronini, Eublemmini, Phytometrini and Boletobiini to the subfamily Boletobiinae of the family Erebidae. The generic composition of the Eustrotiinae (in modern concept) is still disputed. Ueda (1984, 1987) revised the core of Eustrotiinae—Deltote generic groups in Japan and Taiwan including genera Deltote Reichenbach, Leipzig, 1817, Erastroides Hampson, 1893, Maliattha Walker, 1863, Neustrotia, 1982, Micardia Butler, 1878 and newly described Protodeltote Ueda, 1984, Koyaga Ueda, 1984, Sugia Ueda, 1984 and Pseudodeltote Ueda, 1984. He synonymized genera Lithacodia Hübner, 1818 (type-species: Lithacodia bellicula Hübner, 1818) and Eustrotia Hübner, [1821] 1816 (type-species: Phalaena uncula (Clerck, 1759) with Deltote by congenerity of their typespecies. Poole (1989) treated Lithacodia and Eustrotia as distinct genera with 128 and 78 valid species in each respectively. Some of them probably belong to Deltote and to various genera of Deltote generic-group selected by Ueda (1984, 1987), the majority of the species requires revision of their generic association. This article presents a brief review of the genus Deltote of the Chinese fauna. Four reviewed species are well recognized members of Deltote i.e D. bankiana (Fabricius, 1775), D. uncula (Clerck, 1759), D. nemorum (Oberthur, 1880), D. deceptoria (Scopoli, 1763); one species, Deltote melaleuca (Hampson, 1910) comb. n. is transferred to Deltote from Lithacodia; the new synonymy for this species is established (= Lithacodia shansiensis Berio, 1977 syn. n.); one new species, Deltote walonga sp. n. is described from China. The holotype and paratype of the new species are deposited in the collection of Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, China (NEFU). Acronyms used: for museums and collections: CIS—Center for Insect Systematics, Kangwon, Republic of Korea; FMNH—Finnish Museum Natural History, Helsinki, Finland; HNHM—Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest, Hungary; IBSS—Institute of biology and soil science; KN—collection Kari Nupponen, Espo, Finland; NEFU— Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, China; ZFMK—Zoologisches Forschunginstitut und Museum Alexander Koenig, Bonn, Germany; for genitalia preparators names: HHL—Han Hui Lin; VK—Vladimir Kononenko; ASB—Ahn Sun Bok.