Synthetic stellar populations for the LMC, color-coded according to the initial stellar mass. The simulation is obtained with the TRILEGAL code (Girardi et al. 2005) and stellar isochrones that include a detailed description of the AGB phase (Marigo et al. 2013, 2017). Suitable selection criteria for LPVs are applied, based on new pulsation models (Trabucchi et al. 2017). Letters a, b, c, and d identify the main branches of evolved stellar populations. In the inset, the curve connects the stages immediately before stars turn to C-stars at varying initial mass in the range from 1.45 to 3 M_⊙ (a few values in M_⊙ are indicated; the initial metallicity is Z = 0.006). Triangles are used to mark AGB stars with HBB. See text and Appendix B for further explanation. The dashed and solid lines correspond to the same empirical boundaries as in Fig. 1.