The first record of Diacrisia metelkana (Lederer, 1861) for Kazakhstan with notes on its bionomics and distribution (Lepidoptera, Erebidae, Arctiinae, Arctiini)

The Amphipalaearctic tiger moth species Diacrisia metelkana (Lederer, 1861) is reported for Kazakhstan for the first time. Data on species’ bionomics in Kazakhstan and general distribution are provided. Species’ habitats in Kazakhstan are illustrated.


Introduction
To this day, there is no paper generalizing data on the Arctiini fauna of Kazakhstan. Nevertheless, data on Kazakhstan tiger moths can be found in some separated publications devoted to regional or local faunas and taxonomy of various groups (Dubatolov 1996;Dubatolov & de Vos 2010;Gorbunov 2011;Witt et al. 2011;Knyazev 2015;Knyazev & Zuban' 2016;Titov et al 2017). The Noctuoidea fauna of North East Kazakhstan is studied more or less satisfactorily, the summarizing paper has been published two years ago (Titov et al 2017). In this paper, the authors report 480 Noctuoidea species including 20 species of the tribe Arctiini. However, since then, new finds keep coming. During field works in the Zhelezinka District of Pavlodar Region of Kazakhstan, the first author of the present paper has collected two specimens of Diacrisia metelkana (Lederer, 1861) (Figs 1-3). One additional specimen has been found among unsorted materials collected in the Uspenka District in 2016.
Diacrisia metelkana has previously been considered to be a member of the genus Rhyparioides Butler, 1877 (Dubatolov 2009;Dubatolov & de Vos 2010;Witt et al. 2011), which has been synonymised with Diacrisia Hübner, [1819] by Rönkä et al. (2016). This group comprises four species, three of which, namely D. amurensis (Bremer, 1861), D. nebulosa Butler, 1877and D. subvaria (Walker, 1855 (Dubatolov 1985;Knyazev et al. 2019). The southernmost find in Pavlodar Region (Osolodochnoe Lake shore) extends the Siberian cluster of species' range by 50 km to the south only, but this is the first record for Kazakhstan fauna. Moths were collected using mercury lamps Osram HWL (MBFT) 250 W and Yalas traps equipped with UV lamps Sylvania F15w/350bl Black light and Philips TL 8W/05. The genitalia were dissected and mounted in euparal on glass slides. The photos of genitalia where taken using the camera Nikon D3100 attached to a microscope with an LM-scope adapter. All pictures were processed using the Adobe Photoshop CC 2018® software. A quadrocopter DJI Phantom 4 PRO was used to shoot biotopes from a height. Ground photography including alive specimens was carried out by the camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II equipped with SIGMA 24-70MM and Canon EF 100 мм f/2.8L Macro USM lenses. The set specimen was photographed by the camera Nikon D850 equipped with Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D lens.

Bionomics
In North East Kazakhstan, D. metelkana is found in the endorheic basin of fresh and brackish lakes situated in the south-west of West Siberian Plain between the crests of Baraba and Kurubmel' Steppes. The crests are low and narrow elevations of aeolian origin, which arose during the humid periods of the late Pleistocene-Holocene (Osintseva 2017).
All three specimens were collected between 22:00 and 23:00 o'clock in light rain with a wind of 3-4 meters per second, a temperature of 20-22 °С and atmospheric pressure 738-750 mm Hg.
The host plants of the species in West Siberian Plain are unknown. In Europe, caterpillars feed mostly Caltha palustris, Euphorbia palustris and Mentha aquatica (König 1983;Witt et al. 2011;Vig 2016).