Chionodes cerdanica Peslier, Nel & Varenne, 2020

Huemer, Peter & Van Nieukerken, Erik J., 2021, Identity of some recently described Lepidoptera from France-re-assessed with DNA barcodes and morphology, Zootaxa 4941 (3), pp. 301-337 : 321-323

Chionodes cerdanica Peslier, Nel & Varenne, 2020

Chionodes cerdanica Nel, Varenne & Peslier 2020: 71 , figs. 11–12.

Examined material. Holotype ♀: France, Pyrénées-Orientales , Dorres (Ventajols), 1600 m, 9.VIII.2019, S. Peslier leg., genitalia slide JN n°33968 (S. Peslier, Perpignan).

BOLD Specimen ID TLMF 28241; BOLD Sequence ID PALEA231-20.

BIN: none

Identity: Chionodes distinctella (Zeller, 1839) , syn. nov. ( Fig. 8 )

Remarks. Chionodes cerdanica was described from a single female and superficially compared with C. ignorantella (Herrich-Schäffer, 1854) ( Nel et al. 2020) . The holotype shows some unique features in genitalia, particularly the short and triangular antrum and the digitate distal part of the apophyses anteriores. However, the fully recovered DNA barcode despite not being barcode compliant, clearly indicates possible conspecifity with C. distinctella (Zeller, 1839) . This species shows some genetic variation represented by a barcode cluster occurring in Finland and a widespread cluster in Europe with considerable genetic variation of 2.15% within this BIN (Huemer et al. 2020). The holotype of C. cerdanica nests in a geographically widespread cluster with only ca. 0.6% divergence from the nearest neighbour. Furthermore the female genitalia of both taxa are at least partially similar in the broad apophyses anteriores. Curiously, Nel et al. (2020) described the ductus and corpus bursae of C. cerdanica as transparent whereas they also stated that these structures were not found during preparation. Whereas the entrance of the ductus bursae is always visible at the anterior end of the antrum in Chionodes , it seems to be completely reduced in this specimen. Therefore we believe that the specimen is likely the result of a rare mutation or of a developmental anomaly that led to genitalia malformation. We consider that it is conspecific with C. distinctella and synonymize them. A similar case was recently exposed for the long-disputed taxon “ Mesapamea remmi ” ( Sihvonen et al. 2019) .

Figures

FIGURE 8. Neighbor-joining tree of Chionodes distinctella incl. C. cerdanica and the closest European species C. fumatella (Douglas, 1850) in BOLD.