sp. nov. (Lepidoptera, Hepialidae): a new host of the caterpillar fungus supported by genome-wide SNP data.

A new species of ghost moth, , is described from Yanzigou glacier, Mt. Gongga, Sichuan, China. The species is a host of the economically important caterpillar fungus . Establishment of this new species is supported by morphology and genetic differentiation measured in a CO1 phylogeny and in genome-wide SNP coverage. A summary tree from 538 sequences of different genetic markers from (including sequences extracted from caterpillar fungus sclerotium samples) support the genus as a monophyletic group, and indicate that is the host genus for . Sampling efforts so far have centered on half of the known phylogenetic diversity of , with some species-level clusters (separated by < 2.5% genetic distance) containing 17 described species. Fifteen clusters are known from either a single "orphan taxon" or a single sequence from a caterpillar fungus sclerotium sample. We provide suggestions for building a more robust phylogeny of the genus and highlight some of the conservation threats that species from this genus face due to unprecedented habitat exploitation.