Eretmocera medinella ( Staudinger, 1859 )

Marabuto, Eduardo, 2022, Spialia rosae Hernández-Roldán, DApporto, Dincă, Vicente & VilA, 2016, and 17 moth species new for the fauna of Portugal (Insecta: Lepidoptera), Arquivos Entomolóxicos 25, pp. 305-322 : 308

6. Eretmocera medinella ( Staudinger, 1859)

— EVOA, Vila Franca de Xira, Lisboa. 1 m a.s.l. MGRS: 29 SNC0299 . VIII.2017 & 27.VIII.2019. Pedro Henriques leg., Eduardo Marabuto det. Several specimens. Daytime spotting. ( Fig. 1i ) .

A day-flying small moth private to salt-marshes and salt-steppes but apparently very local. It was first described from Chiclana (Cádiz, Andalucía) by Staudinger (1859) and all Spanish records still come from the Atlantic shores of this autonomous community ( Huertas Dionisio, 2002, 2007). Otherwise, the species has been recorded from Sicily, Cyprus, eastern Turkey, Central Asia, S. Ural, Iran, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia ( Walsingham, 1889; Rungs, 1967, 1979; Bengtsson, 1997; Nupponen et al., 2000; Özbek, 2009; Barton, 2018). This species is apparently oligophagous on hallophytic Amaranthaceae and larvae have been cited on Beta vulgaris , Salsola vermiculata , Atriplex halimus , Atriplex patula ( Huertas Dionisio, 2002, 2007), Atriplex prostrata ( Huertas Dionisio, 2007) , Halogeton sativus ( Rungs, 1967) and probably Atriplex semibaccata ( Barton, 2018) .

Current observations report to adult individuals hopping on the salt-barren fields amongst halophytic therophytes.

TORTRICIDAE

Figures

Fig. 1.- Habitus of new Portuguese species. a.- Ptilocephala moncaunella. b.- Ptilocephala monteiroi. c.- Pseudoswammerdamia combinella. d.- Digitivalva occidentella. e.- Prays peregrina, adult. f.- Prays peregrina on host-plant. g.- Prays peregrina, pupae. h.- Epicallima mikkolai. i.- Eretmocera medinella. Photos: Eduardo Marabuto (a, b, d & h); Tita Frazão Lopes (c); Ernesto GonÇalves (e, f & g); Pedro Henriques (i).