Casignetella sibirolinosyris 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 : 26-27

Casignetella sibirolinosyris Budashkin et Akulov , sp. n.

https://zoobank.org/NomenclaturalActs/ 19CB8D3D-0415-488A-8623-63E82ADF0A3D

Figs 8–11

TYPE MATERIAL. Holotype: ♂, Russia: Krasnoyarsk Region, Emelyanovskii District, Minino settl., Pyatkova river , forest-steppe, dry slope, at light, 18.VIII 2018, coll. E. Akulov ( ZIN) . Paratypes: 2 ♂, with same data as for holotype ( ZIN) .

DESCRIPTION. Wingspan 11–12 mm ( Fig. 8 ). Labial palps moderately long, 2.5 times as long as eye diameter. The third segment is 0.8 times the length of the second segment, raised upwards almost at a right angle and covered with more or less smooth brownish and dirty-white scales. The second segment is about the same in color as the third, but with more dark (brownish) scales, and, therefore, it is noticeably darker than the third segment. The apex of the second segment with ventral tuft of the medium length. Head and thorax covered with more or less monochromatic gray-brown scales. Scape covered with more or less smooth gray-brown scales of the same color as the head and thorax; flagellum with very indistinct, alternating light (dirty-white) and dark (brownish-gray) rings approximately equal in width. Forewings gray-brown with a rather wide dirty-white lightening of the costal margin and the same wide blurred lines along veins of the sectors that flow into costal and outer margins of the wing. Another elements of the forewnig pattern are a few, but rather large dark brown sports that occur in the proximal half of the forewings. The cilia dark, brownish-gray. Hindwings dark gray with the same dark brownish-gray cilia as the forewings. Spiny plates on abdominal tergites of medium length, wide ( Fig. 9 ).

Male genitalia ( Figs 9–10 ). Gnathos with a flattened bottom, medium wide and medium long, rounded triangular. Transtilla branches relatively narrow, contiguous, curved in the middle. Valva of medium length and width. Sacculus is well sclerotized, with a powerful finger-shaped terminal outgrowth directed obliquely upwards and with a rounded ventro-caudal angle. Cucullus of medium length and width, oval. Valvula medium size, rounded widely triangular. Phallotheca rods fused, medium length, about a half of the length, strongly narrowed towards apex and arcuate curved down. The apex of phallotheca rods is armed with two teeth, one of wich is long comb-shaped and is located at the top of phallotheca, and the second, much smaller, obliquely-widely triangular, is located at a short distance proximal to the first. Cornutus is very long, arcuate curved, longer than sacculus.

DIAGNOSIS. Relatively small species (wingspan 11–12 mm). Externally it resemdles many species of the genus with a similar brownish or brownish-grey basic coloration of the forewings with widely lightened dirty white veins, especially in the upper sectors. By external morphology and male genitalia, the new species is highly similar to C. linosyris (Hering, 1937) (North Africa, South and Central Europe, Russia: Crimea, South Ural) ( Baldizzone et al., 2006; Budashkin & Puzanov, 2017; Anikin, 2019), but distinctly different by smaller size, darker color and the absence of a lobe at the ventro-caudal angle of the sacculus, merged phallotheca rods and the presence of two teeth vs. one in a closely related species.

BIONOMY. Host plants are unknown. The holotype and paratypes were collected 18.VIII.2018 at light in forest-steppe on dry slope with Pinus sylvestris , Betula sp. , Populus sp. and forb-grass vegetation with the predominance of grasses Stipa pennata S. capillata , Koeleria macrantha and other are replaced by forb meadows and marshy grass-forb-legume meadows with Medicago falcata , Onobrychis sp. , Artemisia sp. , Veronica sp. and other.

DISTRIBUTION. Russia: Krasnoyarsk Region.

ETYMOLOGY. The proposed name of the new species emphasizes it relatedness to C. linosyris and presence of the new species in Siberia.

Figures

Figs 8–11. Casignetella sibirolinosyris sp. n., holotype. 8 – imago; 9 – spiny plates on abdominal tergites; 10 – male genitalia, pallotheca remuved; 11 – phallotheca.