Athroolopha latimargo Rothschild, 1914

Guerrero, Juan J., Cuenca, E. David, Barros, David & Ortiz, Antonio S., 2020, Redescription and DNA barcoding of diurnal moth Athroolopha latimargo Rothschild, 1914 bona sp., stat. rev. from the southern Iberian Peninsula (Lepidoptera: Geometridae: Ennominae), Zootaxa 4729 (4), pp. 582-588 : 584-586

Athroolopha latimargo Rothschild, 1914 bona sp., stat. rev.

Athroolopha chrysitaria latimargo Rothschild, 1914 : Novit. Zool. 21: 351 (Central Algeria: Guelt-Es-Stel).

Fidonia pennigeraria orientalis Rothschild, 1925 : Bull. Soc. Sci. nat. Maroc 5 (4-5): 149 ( Algeria: Hauts Plateaux, Province of Constantine: Batna, Khenchela, Constantine, etc.). Synonym of latimargo according to Leraut (2009) and Müller et al. (2019).

Description: Adult ( Fig. 1A ). Head black, mouth appendices black; antennae black feather-like (partially bipectinate) in male and filiform in female. Frons, collar, thorax and abdomen dark grey with scattered lighter scales. Wingspan male 37 mm and female 33.2 mm; forewing ground colour brownish, with scattered orange, grey and whitish scales, crossed by two transverse and continuous wavy whitish lines. Postmedial line with two teeth, median line with one tooth blurred in females. Median and basal darker than distal areas displaying more contrasting effect. Hindwings orangey yellow with broad blackish margin from apex to tornus, with scattered orangey yellow scales and without a band in the costa. Fringes chequered dark brown and orangey yellow weakly. Ground colour of underside orange, brown speckled.

Male genitalia ( Fig. 1C ). Uncus wide, triangular, weakly setose, tip bent beak-shaped. Gnathos arms wide, fused ventrally, granulate. Valva near apex and ventrally membranous, base extended, apex rounded. Costa sclerotized, subapically setose over half of valve length. Sacculus at base sclerotized, smooth, apically more membranous, setose. Valva wider than in A. pennigeraria , dorsal margin slightly concave. Saccus tapered, tip dorsally bent, longer than in A. pennigeraria . Shield-shapped juxta posteriorly forming a ring, anteriorly with two sclerotized, tapered lobes and a rounded triangular projection. Aedeagus short, narrower towards apex, caecum less round and sclerotized than in A. pennigeraria . Without cornuti.

Female genitalia. No differences were observed when compared to A. chrysitaria female genitalia in Müller et al. (2019; pg. 341, fig. 117).

Diagnosis. Athroolopha latimargo is externally similar to Athroolopha chrysitaria which were hitherto considered conspecific at different subspecific rank and very different to Athroolopha pennigeraria . It differs from the former by a less dark forewing pattern displaying a soft contrast with wavy whitish lines and hindwing with orange colour, although both could be very variable and, from the latter, by forewing with white lines sharper with whitish scales in medial area and hindwing with dark brown terminal continuous band from apex to tornus which does not reach the anal and costal margin. Diagnostic characters are found in the male genitalia which differ from A. pennigeraria in gnathos arms wider, valve wider, costa and ventral margin less concave and from A. chrysitaria in valve more rounded at tip, uncus shorter and rounded, gnathos shorter and juxta longer (Mülller et al. 2019; pg. 666, fig. 117). The COI sequences of the sampled specimens had between 621 and 635 nucleotide bp and indicate significant divergence with mean distances to A. pennigeraria of 5.27% and to A. chrysitaria of 1.85% ( Table 1 ). The maximum intraspecific divergence detected was 0.2% (n=3). Distance between A. pennigeraria and A. chrysitaria is 5.4% with n=1 ( Müller et al. 2019).

Bionomics. The larva was not observed but since Athroolopha chrysitaria is monophagous on Erica spp. in Sicily, the larva probably feeds on Erica umbellata Loefl. ex L. that is present in the area. The adult seems to be a monovoltine species and are on the wing at the end of May and probably at the beginning of June. Habitats are middle-mountains areas, garrigue scrubland with trees and maquis in a Mediterranean shrubland at 410 m above sea-level within the thermomediterranean bioclimatic belt, and characterized with very constant and smooth temperatures throughout the year with annual rainfall that exceeds 800 mm /m², reaching 1000-1600 mm /m² thanks to the oceanic fronts that sweep it from west to east during autumn, winter and spring ( Fig. 1D, E ).

Distribution. Known from in the furthest point of the south of the Iberian Peninsula and from Morocco to Eastern Algeria. No records from Tunisia.

Remarks. Müller et al. (2019) considered latimargo as a subspecific name of A. pennigeraria while Leraut (2009) validated as subspecies of A. chrysitaria .

Figures

FIGURE 1. Athroolopha latimargo Rothschild.A. Male adult; B. Female adult; C. Male genitalia; D. Habitat preference known as herrizas; E. Erica umbellata Loefl.