Discussion

Guizhou Province is in the southwestern hinterland of China and is characterised by its extensive karst landforms that have shaped complex and diverse ecosystems with exceptionally rich biodiversity. Through systematic examination of museum and field collections, three new species of Vekunta are described from Guizhou Province, and V. fuscolineata is newly recorded for China.

Vekunta belongs to the subfamily Derbinae, tribe Cenchreini. At the generic level, Vekunta is externally similar to Goneokara Muir, 1913 (Yang and Wu 1994), the only other genus of Cenchreini known from China. During field surveys and specimen collection, several specimens of the genus Goneokara (unpublished) were obtained. Morphological comparison revealed that the two genera are similar in external appearance. The key diagnostic feature lies in the forewing venation, where RP and MP1+2 are fused for a distance, whereas in Goneokara, these veins are not fused. Furthermore, this characteristic serves as a stable and important morphological basis distinguishing Vekunta from other genera within the tribe.

To date, no infrageneric or species-group classification has been proposed for this genus. Available data indicate that specimens collected from bamboo and those from other hosts share the generic diagnostic characters, without showing any clear morphological divergence. However, the possibility of host-associated morphological differences cannot be ruled out and warrants further investigation. Moreover, some species may not be strictly bamboo-feeding, as occasional records from other plants suggest a broader host range.

Host plant records for Vekunta remain scarce. To date, only Vekunta bri Löcker, Löcker & Holzinger, 2009 has been documented on shrubs (Löcker et al. 2009). However, based on published literature and field surveys, several species—including V. bambusana, V. triprotrusa, V. stigmata, V. pentaprocessusa, V. fuscolineata, and three Vekunta spp.—have been collected from bamboo (Sui and Chen 2019; Chen and Yang 2023; Chen et al. 2024). Notably, the three new species, V. deflecta Yao, Sui & Chen, sp. nov., V. fodingshanensis Yao, Sui & Chen, sp. nov., and V. furcata Yao, Sui & Chen, sp. nov., described here were also found on bamboo, which further supports the possibility of bamboo serving as important host plants for this genus. Ongoing efforts are focused on collecting host-association data for additional species of Vekunta. Nevertheless, a more thorough understanding of these ecological relationships will require further field surveys and more accurate data, which we hope to obtain in future studies.

China is characterised by exceptionally abundant bamboo resources, with Guizhou Province being one of China’s most bamboo-rich regions (Xu et al. 2024). The discovery of three new Vekunta species in this area is therefore not unexpected, and further discoveries of new Vekunta species in this area are highly anticipated.