Hepialid Moth Diversity in Australia Further Highlighted by Five New Species in the Endemic Genus Abantiades Herrich-Schäffer (Lepidoptera: Hepialidae)

We describe five new species of <i>Abantiades</i> from Australia, four from Western Australia (WA) and one from south-east Queensland. Of the four WA species, three are from the Geraldton Sandplains biogeographic region (<i>Abantiades profundus</i><b>sp. nov.</b>, <i>A. kolpodes</i><b>sp. nov.</b>, and <i>A. patella</i><b>sp. nov.</b>), and the fourth (<i>A. lepusaures</i><b>sp. nov.</b>) was found in the Eastern Goldfields region. The Queensland species (<i>A. incognito</i><b>sp. nov.</b>) comes from the south-eastern Queensland biogeographic region. Our five new species demonstrated the importance of wing morphology, genitalia and antennal structure in diagnosing <i>Abantiades</i> species. However, antennal structure as a diagnostic character defining these species highlighted historical problems that, in part, were used to erect <i>Trictena</i> and <i>Bordaia</i>, recently synonymised into <i>Abantiades</i>. To explore this further, we used mtDNA <i>COI</i> 'barcode' sequences and compared our new species with all currently available species for the genus <i>Abantiades</i>.