Megacraspedus tabelli, Huemer, Peter & Karsholt, Ole, 2018

Huemer, Peter & Karsholt, Ole, 2018, Revision of the genus Megacraspedus Zeller, 1839, a challenging taxonomic tightrope of species delimitation (Lepidoptera, Gelechiidae), ZooKeys 800, pp. 1-278 : 93-94

Megacraspedus tabelli sp. n.

Examined material.

Holotype ♂, "MOROCCO Settat Prov. Sidi Said Machou 2.5 km E 1125 m, N 33.14137 W 8.09181 18.5.2016 J. Tabell leg." "DNA Barcode TLMF Lep 21269" "GU 16/1452 ♂ P. Huemer" (ZMUC). Paratype. Morocco. 1 ♂, same data as holotype, but genitalia slide GEL 1261 Huemer (TLMF).

Description.

Adult. Male (Figure 72). Wingspan 14-15 mm. Labial palpus long, porrect, dark brown mottled with white, especially on inner and upper surface; segment 3 reduced. Antennal scape with pecten of one soft hair; flagellum dark brown, indistinctly lighter ringed. Head, thorax and tegula as forewing. Forewing light yellow-brown with white veins; fringes light grey, blackish grey at apex. Hindwing grey with grey fringes.

Female. Unknown.

Variation. The two examined specimens are similar except for being in different conditions.

Male genitalia (Figure 206). Uncus moderately broad, about two times longer than broad, with parallel outer margin apex sinusoid; gnathos hook stout, massive, about length of uncus, weakly curved; tegumen with broad and shallowly emarginated anterior margin, anteromedially additional emargination, anteromedially with sclerotised ridge; pedunculi small, suboval, posteriorly with sclerotised ridge; valva extending to base of uncus, basally inflated, digitate distal part strongly tapered, apically rounded; sacculus absent; posterior margin of vinculum shallowly emarginated, laterally with small hump; saccus sub-triangular, strongly tapered towards apex, slightly longer than broad, posterior margin sinusoid, medial part without sclerotised ridge, lateral sclerites slightly shorter than maximum width of saccus; phallus with inflated coecum, about twice width of distal part, long sclerotised distodorsal ridge, dentated.

Female genitalia. Unknown.

Diagnosis.

Megacraspedus tabelli sp. n. is characterised by its light yellow-brown forewings with white veins. It may resemble M. albovenata (Figs 81-82) or M. longipalpella (Figs 83-84), but these species are larger and have black scales scattered on the forewings. The male genitalia largely agree with those of M. numidellus (Figs 210-212) and other members of the M. fallax species group but differ from M. numidellus by the more slender uncus and gnathos hook.

Molecular data.

BIN BOLD:ADF1917 (n = 2). The intraspecific divergence of the barcode region is low with maximum divergence of 0.6%. The distance to the nearest congeneric neighbour M. numidellus sp. n. is 9.8% (p-dist).

Distribution.

North-western Morocco.

Biology.

Host plant and early stages are unknown. The small type series was collected in middle of May at an altitude of 1125 m.

Etymology.

The species name (a noun in the genitive case) is dedicated to Jukka Tabell, Finland, who collected the type series of this species and significantly contributed to our work with most valuable material.