Elucidation of the Taxonomy of Three Problematic East Asian Nola Leach, 1815, with Description of a New Species (Lepidoptera, Nolidae, Nolinae)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 

This manuscript adds to the taxonomic literature pertaining to the East Asian members of the Noctuoid genus Nola. In addition to elucidating the taxonomy of several problematic taxa, the authors describe one new species. The paper is straightforward and follows appropriate methodologies for a taxonomic revision. 

 

One thing that is missing, is even a brief discussion about the use of molecular methods to determine where the species boundaries are in this group. It’s 2022 and integrative taxonomy is now the gold standard, especially with respect to confusing, taxonomically problematic taxa that are all closely related.  The authors could mention that future molecular work may clarify the species boundaries that were assessed in this paper using only morphology. 

 

Some examples of recent taxonomic revisions that incorporated both morphology and molecular methods to elucidate problematic insect taxa are as follows:

 

Duran, D.P., Herrmann, D.P., Roman, S.J., Gwiazdowski, R.A., Drummond, J.A., Hood, G.R. & Egan, S.P. (2019) Cryptic diversity in the North American Dromochorus tiger beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Cicindelinae): a congruence-based method for species discovery. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 186, 250—285

 

Ješovnik, A., Sosa-Calvo, J., Lloyd, M.W., Branstetter, M.G., Fernández, F. & Schultz, T.R. (2017) Phylogenomic species delimitation and host-symbiont coevolution in the fungus-farming ant genus Sericomyrmex Mayr (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): ultraconserved elements (UCEs) resolve a recent radiation. Systematic Entomology, 42, 523-542. https://doi.org/10.1111/syen.12228

 

Longino, J.T. & Branstetter, M.G. (2020) Phylogenomic species delimitation, taxonomy, and ‘Bird Guide’ identification for the Neotropical ant genus Rasopone (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Insect Systematics and Diversity, 4, 1—33. https://doi.org/10.1093/isd/ixaa004

 

 

Additional edits/comments are below:

 

Abstract: 

It would be less awkwardly worded if “The paper discusses the taxonomy of three East Asian Nola Leach, 1815 taxa, N. costimacula Staudinger, 1887, N. japonibia (Strand, 1920) and N. innocua Butler, 1880 with describing a new species N. galliphaga sp. nov. from Japan and South Korea and synonymizing N. japonibia syn. nov. with N. costimacula…” was changed to

 

“The paper discusses the taxonomy of three East Asian Nola Leach, 1815 taxa, N. costimacula Staudinger, 1887, N. japonibia (Strand, 1920) and N. innocua Butler, 1880. We describe a new species N. galliphaga sp. nov. from Japan and South Korea and synonymize N. japonibia syn. nov. with N. costimacula…”

 

Introduction:

Remove “the” before the word Antarctica

 

Change “due to the vast taxon number” to “Due to the vast number of taxa”

 

 

Author Response

We changed as follows reviewer 1's additional comment. 

Thank you for your kind revised.I hope to use molecular methods for determine where the species boundaries in near future. However, in this study focused on those three species' morphological characters. Still, morphological study is base of all applied study, include molecular study, and current study can be fully understood by their morphology. Nevertheless, we appreciated for three wonderful articles that we can refer in future. Those are good references for study for congeners of Nola Leach genus.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper clarifies misinterpretations qand synonymies of names of some species of Lepidoptera. It is weel documented, the type materials have been examined and the conclusions seem to be sound. The illustrations are of high quality and in general this seems to be a good taxonomic paper, properly conducted. There are some minor problems in language, I have made a few corrections and suggestions, as seen in the file that is uploaded here, but in general I suggest that the paper is checked by an English mother language person.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We almost changed as you mentioned.

Some unaccepted comments were followed as reviewer 1’s comments

Author Response File: Author Response.docx