Metanema brunneilinearia - Hodges#6962

Ferris mentions with respect to possibly lumping brunneilinearia and inatomaria , I don’t feel it appropriate to make the synonomy. DNA analysis (barcoding) could resolve this issue, but that is beyond the intent and scope of this article, which is simply to return brunneilinearia to the genus where it belongs. There are three BINs for inatomaria at BOLD. A DNA barcoded sample, BIOUG00849-H02 (BugGuide # 601898 ), collected by Jim Moore from Lassen County, CA, about 40 miles from Johnsville, a location at which brunneilinearia was collected , matches the description of brunneilinearia . It is placed squarely in BOLD:ACF5556 , a BIN group with mostly northwestern inatomaria specimens. This BIN includes specimens from British Columbia south to California and east to Ontario and New Mexico. DNA barcode separates this BIN by over 1% from BOLD:AAA5686 , a BIN with over 50 specimens from northeast US and eastern Canada with no specimens from west of the Mississippi River. It would seems reasonable that the Lassen County specimen represents brunneilinearia and perhaps the rest of the specimens in BOLD:ACF5556 are also that species despite their greater similarity to inatomaria . (The third BIN is BOLD:ACF5552 with just three specimens from Oklahoma to Ontario. Perhaps it represent an undescribed species.) If brunneilinearia is a good species and BOLD:ACF5556 and BOLD:AAA5686 prove to be brunneilinearia and inatomaria respectively, then brunneilinearia would be apparently be a wide ranging western species found as far east as central Ontario with inatomaria perhaps restricted to the northeast. - Steve Nanz (1/25/2020)