A new species of Physocleora Warren, 1897 (Lepidoptera: Geometridae) from Atacama and Puna provinces, northernmost Chile.

Riparian zones of the Atacama Desert and slopes of the Andes mountain range host a diversity of insect species still unknown, and some lineages of different species of Geometridae have been discovered in recent years in such areas. Here we describe Physocleora polyphaga Vargas-Ortiz & Parra sp.nov., a polyphagous species closely related of several native plants, distributed in coastal valleys and slopes of the Andes mountain range in the northernmost Chile. We present their diagnostic morphological characteristics, some ecological traits, and a representation of its evolutionary history within Physocleora Warren 1897 from DNA barcode sequence data. To validate the hypothesis of conspecificity of the specimens found, we use species delimitation methods based on genetic distances and phylogenetics.