Melanastera duckei Serbina & Malenovský & Queiroz & Burckhardt 2025

The duckei -group Description. Adult. Head, in lateral view, inclined at ≥ 45° from longitudinal axis of body. Vertex (Figs 12F–L; 13A, B) trapezoidal, covered with imbricate microsculpture and microscopical setae. Thorax weakly to strongly arched, covered with microscopical setae; metapostnotum with distinct longitudinal keel. Forewing (Figs 18J, 19A– H) uniformly coloured, with small brown dots (absent in M. lucens); pterostigma distinctly expanding towards the middle or apical third, longer than 4.0 times as wide; vein R 1 weakly convex or straight medially. Paramere, in lateral view, irregularly acuminate or lanceolate. Ventral process of the distal aedeagal segment, in lateral view, straight or hardly curved and with short apico-median lobe, more than half as long as apical dilation; in dorsal view, at least slightly wider than apical dilation, apico-median lobe mostly visible. Immature. Antenna 10-segmented. Comments. The group includes nine species from Brazil. One species from Costa Rica, viz. M. lucens (Burckhardt, Hanson & Madrigal), resembles the duckei -group in the structure of the distal segment of the aedeagus and may be closely related to it, but it differs from the Brazilian species in the bright orange body and the absence of dark dots on the forewings (the latter character it shares with olgae -group). Confirmed or probable hosts of five Brazilian species are Melastomataceae (Miconia), of two species Annonaceae (Guatteria, Xylopia), and one species develops on Myristicaceae (cf. Virola). For one species the host is unknown.