Casignetella pseudohelgada Budashkin et Akulov, 2023

Akulov, E. N. & Budashkin, Yu. I., 2023, THREE NEW SPECIES OF THE GENUS CASIGNETELLA STRAND, 1928 (LEPIDOPTERA: COLEOPHORIDAE) FROM SOUTHERN SIBERIA, Far Eastern Entomologist 489, pp. 21-28 : 22-24

Casignetella pseudohelgada Budashkin et Akulov , sp. n.

https://zoobank.org/NomenclaturalActs/ 993CA9EB-B6F6-4753-8EDA-684E254DFCEB Figs 1–4

TYPE MATERIAL. Holotype: ♂, Russia: Republic of Khakassia, Shirinskii District, Chjernoe Ozero village ., steppe, at light, 30.VII 2019, coll. E. Akulov ( ZIN).

DESCRIPTION. Male. Wingspan 11 mm ( Fig. 1 ). Labial palps moderately long, 1.6 times as long as eye diameter, light brown, strongly elevated, the third segment is 0.6 times the length of the second segment. Ventral apical tuft of the second segment of labial palps very short. Head and basal segment of antennae approximately the same color as labial palps. The head is completely covered with protruding scales. Antennal flagellum with very indistinct alternating narrow light (brownish-white) and wide dark (brown, slightly darker than head) ringlets. The thorax slightly lighter than the head. Forewings light brown, the anterior about a third of the wing area is noticeably broadly lightened to brownish-white, with intermittent wide dark brown line in median cell and with small and rare accumulations of the same dark brown scales in different parts of the wing. The cilia mostly gray, with large dark brown fragments on the outer margin of the wings and on its costal margin in front of the apex. Hindwings gray, with the same gray cilia as on the forewings (cilia noticeably lighter than wing area). Spiny plates on abdominal tergites of medium length, wide ( Fig. 2 ).

Male genitalia ( Figs 3, 4 ). Gnathos more or less narrowly pineal. Transtilla branches contiguous, with spherically expanded apical parts. The valva is narrow and short, the sacculus is well sclerotized, of medium size, its terminal outgrowth is more or less finger-shaped directed upwards and slightly inward and reaches the upper edge of the valva, at the apex of this outgrowth hes a large wide hook-shaped lobe directed towards the base of the valva, and slightly below it through a fairy wide gap, another one is slightly wider rounded-widetriangular blade, approximately the same in length and similarly directed. Distal edge of the sacculus has a vertical row of large triangular teeth directed outwards. Cucullus of medium length and width, more or less bean-shaped. Valvula small, with arcuate lower margin. Phallotheca rods small, narrow, are bent down at a rounded angle before the middle of the length. The left rod has a powerful lateral triangular tooth for about two-thirds of its length, and a very small wide-triangular tooth in the apical part of the rod. The right rod is armed with three smaller, laterally triangular teeth, two of which are located next to each other a little more proximally than on the left rod and the third tooth is located in the apical part of the right rod and is directed obliquely upward to the right with respect to the vertical axis of the phallotheca. Ribbon-like sclerite is slightly longer than phallotheca rods. Cornutus single, short but rather strong, located on a small flat oval basal plate.

DIAGNOSIS. New species belongs to a small aestuariella -species group which, until now, included only three species: C. aestuariella ( Bradley, 1984) (Central and Southern Europe), C. ochroptera ( Li, 2004) , comb. n. (Northwestern China), and C. helgada ( Anikin, 2005) ( Russia: Crimea, Western Caucasus, Volga-Don and Lower Volga regions) ( Baldizzone et al., 2006; Li, 2004; Anikin, 2005, 2019; Budashkin & Puzanov, 2017). Externally the new species is well distinguished from all these three species by the absence of ocher tones in the coloration of forewings and other parts of the body. In male genitalia a new species has a longest and narrowest of gnathos, and the peculiar armament of the phallotheca rods, which consists on left rod from one large external lateral tooth for two thirds of the length of the rod and one very small wide-triangular tooth in the apical part of the rod, and on right rod – from two also external lateral, but smaller teeth side by side, slightly more proximal, and one tooth in apical part of the rod.

BIONOMY. The host plants are unknown. The holotype collected in meadow grass-forb steppe with the predominance of Calamagrostis neglecta , Helictotrichon desertorum , Aster alpinus , Fragaria viridis and Astragalus versicolor . Taking into account that the new species belongs to aestuariella- species group ( Bradley, 1984; Li, 2004; Anikin, 2005), it can be assumed with a very high degree of probability that it is an inhabit the banks of salt ponds and salt lakes, and its larvae are tropically are associated with Suaeda s p.

DISTRIBUTION. Russia: Republic of Khakassia.

ETYMOLOGY. The proposed name of the new species emphasizes its greatest similarity with C. helgada ..

Figures

Figs 1–4. Casignetella pseudohelgada sp. n., holotype. 1 – imago; 2 – spine plates on abdominal tergites; 3 – male genitalia, pallotheca remuved; 4 – phallotheca.