Accepted by P. Goldstein: 3 Dec. 2018; published: 17 Jan. 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 ZOOTAXA ISSN 1175-5326 (print edition) ISSN 1175-5334 (online edition) Copyright © 2019 Magnolia Press Zootaxa 4545 (2): 277–285 https://www.mapress.com/j/zt/ Article 277 https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4545.2.7 http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:1EDD2925-6E87-49B3-885A-B515693605CA Two new day-flying species of Agrotis Ochsenheimer (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) from the alpine summit of the Maunakea Volcano MATTHEW J MEDEIROS 1 , JESSICA KIRKPATRICK 2 , CHRISTINE H ELLIOTT 3 , ANDERSONN PRESTES 3 , JESSE EIBEN 4 & DANIEL RUBINOFF 3 1 The Urban School of San Francisco, 1563 Page St, San Francisco, CA, 94117 USA, and School of Life Sciences, UNLV, Las Vegas, NV 89154 USA. E-mail: matt.j.medeiros@gmail.com 2 Office of Maunakea Management, 640 North Aʻohōkū Place, University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, HI, 96720 USA. E-mail: jakirkpa@hawaii.edu 3 University of Hawaii at Mānoa, Dept. of Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences, Honolulu, HI 96822 USA. E-mail: chelliot@hawaii.edu, aprestes@hawaii.edu, rubinoff@hawaii.edu 4 College of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resource Management, 200 W. Kawili St. University of Hawaii at Hilo, Hilo, HI 96720 USA. E-mail: eiben@hawaii.edu Abstract Two new endemic Hawaiian species of Agrotis Ochsenheimer (Noctuidae) are described: A. helela and A. kuamauna. Both species are day-flying and occur at high-elevations. Observations of adult and larval morphology and biology are included, as well as illustrations of adult moths and genitalia for both sexes. Key words: Hawaiʻi, Mauna Kea, Maunakea, Mauna Loa, Maunaloa, Noctuinae, morphology, taxonomy Introduction Agrotis Ochsenheimer 1816 (Noctuidae) is a cosmopolitan genus with approximately 300 described species. Recent overviews of the genus along with diagnostic characters of the male and female genitalia are given in Lafontaine (2004) and San Blas (2014, 2015). The larvae of some species are considered major agricultural pests (San Blas 2014). As adults, the group is easily identified in Hawai‘i using external characters by virtue of Agrotis having a large number of conspicuous spines along the tibiae and tarsal segments of all three pairs of legs (Zimmerman 1958). Additional genitalia characters for Agrotis listed by Lafontaine (2004) are also present in the Hawaiian species. Hawai‘i has 27 species of Agrotis, 26 of them endemic with A. ipsilon being an accidental introduction (Nishida 2002, where A. diplosticta is listed as a separate species though it is a synonym of A. hephaestaea; Zimmerman 1958). A recent morphology-based phylogeny suggested that the Hawaiian species may be derived from a Neotropical colonist (San Blas 2015). Although new species of Agrotis are described periodically, no new species were described from Hawai‘i since 1932 (Zimmerman 1958). Very little genitalic variation exists in the group, and other structural diagnostic characters are lacking as well, although some variation exists in the triangular processes of the male antennal flagellomeres (Zimmerman 1985). Wing pattern, locality information, and diet are necessary to separate the species of Agrotis. Two new day-flying members of Agrotis that are endemic to high elevation areas (2800m+) on Hawai‘i Island are described in this paper. Materials and methods Adult moths were collected by hand with a net, or in other cases, reared from larvae. Larvae were captured with tuna (canned) baited pitfall traps that were placed throughout the Alpine Stone Desert ecosystem on Maunakea Volcano. Larvae that were medium (~20mm) to large in size (>23mm) were reared in a laboratory until they died or