Telotheta unoi Lindt & Viidalepp

Lindt, Aare & Viidalepp, Jaan, 2014, Two new emerald geometrid species of Telotheta Warren from Ecuador and Bolivia (Lepidoptera: Geometridae, Geometrinae, Lophochoristini), Biodiversity Data Journal 2, pp. 1158-1158 : 1158

Telotheta unoi Lindt & Viidalepp sp. n.

Materials

Type status: Holotype. Occurrence: sex: male; Location: country: Ecuador; stateProvince: Napo; verbatimLocality: Carlos Julio; verbatimElevation: 950 m; verbatimLatitude: 01°15'33"S; verbatimLongitude: 77°49'27"W; decimalLatitude: -1.259167; decimalLongitude: -77.824167; Event: samplingProtocol: UV light sampling; eventDate: 2008-02-10; Record Level: institutionCode: EMNH

Type status: Paratype. Occurrence: sex: 4 males; Location: country: Ecuador; stateProvince: Napo; verbatimLocality: Carlos Julio; verbatimElevation: 950 m; verbatimLatitude: 01°15'33"S; verbatimLongitude: 77°49'27"W; decimalLatitude: -1.259167; decimalLongitude: -77.824167; Event: samplingProtocol: UV light sampling; eventDate: 2008-02-10; Record Level: institutionCode: EMNH; collectionCode: IZBE

Description

Head, thorax and abdomen. Male: The wing span of males is 15-17 mm (Fig. 1, left). The frons is almost rectangular, wide and high, dark brown above, paler towards clypeus, with a whitish line along the lower edge (Fig. 2a). The width of the frons along its dorsal edge is 0.7 mm, and along the ventral edge is 0.55 mm. The interantennal fillet is white with a green hue, and the vertex, thorax and dorsum of the abdomen are green. The male antennae are bipectinate, the pectinations being 0.5-0.55 mm long at the tenth antennal segment and tapering out beyond the middle of antenna. The venation of the wings is as described for the genus. Male palpi are slender, reaching the frons.

Forewings are with an angulate apex, the distal and anal margins being almost straight. The forewings are densely scaled, scales pigmented in dark green, darker towards the apex of the wings; hindwings paler, whitish green; the discal veins are more densely scaled in both wings. The discal spots are smaller than in Telotheta fresei and Telotheta muscipunctata , and dark green. The transverse lines and submarginal line is absent, the fringe being greenish (whitish in Telotheta muscipunctata ). The costal edge of the forewing is lined light brown (slightly rosy in Telotheta muscipunctata ). The hindwing distal margins are evenly rounded, not slightly angulated at the middle.

Male genitalia (Fig. 3a). The male genital armature is similar to the armatures of Telotheta fresei and Telotheta muscipunctata but smaller: the height of the genital capsule, from the tip of the uncus to the tip of the vinculum is 1.0 mm. The valva is apically bilobed, the lobes are more slender in Telotheta unoi compared to those in related species. The dorsal margin of the dorsal lobe bears a row of stout curved setae in Telotheta muscipunctata and Telotheta fresei , which are lacking in the new species Telotheta unoi . The valva subapical lobe is edged straight ventrally, the strong setae are longer towards the base of the lobe. The anellar complex is broadest in the middle, the dorsal tips of the juxta converging. The distal projections of the sternite A8 are slender, rigid and finely rugose at the lateral edges in Telotheta unoi and Telotheta muscipunctata , while in Telotheta fresei they appear projecting flat and triangularly. The aedeagus is slightly curved, 1.0 mm long, without cornuti.

Etymology

The new species is dedicated to Mag. Uno Roosileht from the Estonian Museum of Natural History, coleopterist, colleague and co-traveller. The gender of the newly described species is masculine.

Distribution

The new species was collected in the middle elevation tropical mountain forests on the Eastern slope of the Eastern Cordilleras, in Ecuador.

Taxon discussion

Remarks. Forewings of the new species Telotheta unoi are dark green, hindwings greenish white. This wing pattern - forewings darker than hindwings - is similar to that of an another Neotropical genus, Paromphacodes Warren. However, Paromphacodes is different in the venation of wings ( Prout 1932) and in the presence of two pairs of spurs on the hind tibia. Moreover, the species of Paromphacodes studied have rosy or red-brown postmedial spots on the forewings and the fringe of wings usually contrastingly red-brown or rosy ( Pitkin 1996, Prout 1932). Paromphacodes has nemoriine male genitalia, very different from those in Telotheta .