Perisama hazarma Hewitson 1869

Perisama hazarma Hewitson, 1869 = Perisama hazarma davidi Attal & Crosson-du-Cormier, 1996, syn. nov. Perisama hazarma (Hewitson, 1869) is one of the most distinctive species in the genus, and one of the rarest in collections. Perisama davidi (Dognin, 1888), described as a separate species, was considered as a subspecies of P. hazarma by Attal & Crosson-du-Cormier (1996, 2010), but as a synonym of the latter by Lamas (2004). Attal & Crosson-du-Cormier (1996) pointed out some putative morphological differences, namely more golden yellow HWV ground colour, lightly alternated fringes on the HW and a more complete FWD metallic band, broken in the nominate subspecies. Recent observations in the Sangay National Park, which corresponds located to the supposed “distributional gap” between the nominate subspecies and P. hazarma davidi, not only prove that the actual range of the species is larger than expected, but also show that the extent of phenotypic variation of P. hazarma was underestimated (Fig. 13), and in fact the subspecies-defining characters of P. hazarma davidi simply reflect individual variation. Therefore, P. hazarma davidi is considered here a junior synonym of P. hazarma.