First Record of Pero rodriguezi Vargas, 2007 (Geometridae) in Peru with Description of the Female

A new species and a new record of Pero Herrich-Schäffer, 1855 (Lepidoptera, Geometridae) in the Andes of southern Peru

“…The discovery of these two species of Pero confirm the importance of the arid environments of the Andes for the representatives of Group 15 of this genus, already highlighted by Poole (1987). The number of species of Pero of the Arequipa Department increases to three, as only one was recorded previously (Cerdeña et al 2019). It is expect that additional species will be discovered with further sampling.…”

“…The list includes the two species previously ascribed to the Neotropical Nepitia Walker, 1866, a genus recently synonymized with Pero based on a molecular phylogenetic study that also provided support for the synonymy of Azelinini with Odontoperini (Brehm et al 2019). South American species of Pero are mostly associated with Andean habitats, from mid-elevation eastern wet forest to xerophytic scrubland of western slopes, and with southeastern Brazilian habitats (Poole 1987;Lévêque 2007;Vargas 2007;Cerdeña et al 2019). Faunistic studies have revealed high diversity of Pero in moist forest of the Andes (Brehm et al 2016).…”

“…The genus Pero is well diversified in the Andes but only one species has been recently reported from Andean environments of southwestern Peru (Cerdeña et al 2019). However, a few discoveries dealing with this genus and other representatives of Geometridae in similar arid environments suggest that this poor representation is due more to a lack of data from low collection effort than to low diversity in this geographic area (Vargas and Hausmann 2008;Vargas et al 2020).…”

Phyllocnistis furcata sp. nov.: a new species of leaf-miner associated with Baccharis (Asteraceae) from Southern Peru (Lepidoptera, Gracillariidae)

“…It includes global record highs of species richness and endemism rates for many taxa of Lepidoptera, particularly along the eastern slopes of the Andes (Lamas 2003;Pyrcz 2004;Hall 2005;Ignatov et al 2011;Willmott et al 2011;Pyrcz et al 2014;Sublett et al 2019). On the other hand, the level of knowledge of the lepidopteran fauna on the southwestern slopes of the Peruvian Andes is poor, based on a small number of studies of butterflies (Lamas 1977;Cerdeña et al 2014;Farfán 2018;Farfán et al 2020b), and with recent records of moths (Cerdeña et al 2019;Farfán et al 2020a), including the first record of a Gracillariidae species for this region (Davis et al 2020).…”