The life histories of Americerura (Lepidoptera: Notodontidae: Cerurinae) from southern Brazil, with the description of a new species

The life histories of four species of sympatric Brazilian Cerurinae (Lepidoptera: Notodontidae), belonging to the recently erected genus Americerura St Laurent and Goldstein, are fully documented from egg to adult. During fieldwork targeting Cerurinae in Rio Grande do Sul, we were able to obtain eggs of the four species known to occur in the state. No immature stages of any of the four species had previously been reared or illustrated in the literature. One of the species, Americerura brasiliensis St Laurent, Carvalho, and Orlandin sp. n., is described as new and is a close relative of the North and Central American A. rarata (Walker). The other species reared herein are A. argynnis (Schaus), A. rivera (Schaus) and A. splendens (Jones), all endemics of South America. All four species feed on Salicaceae, as is typical of the subfamily. We document multiple colour forms and individual larval variation in all species.