Telotheta muscipunctata (Dognin, 1892)

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 muscipunctata (Dognin, 1892)

Materials

Type status: Other material. Occurrence: recordedBy: Aare Lindt; individualCount: 1; sex: male; Location: country: Ecuador; stateProvince: Pichincha; verbatimLocality: El Transito; verbatimElevation: 1080; verbatimLatitude: 00°18'59"S; verbatimLongitude: 78°54'54"W; Event: samplingProtocol: UV light sampling; eventDate: 2008-02-03; Record Level: institutionCode: ENHM

Description

Both original descriptions by P. Dognin and W. Warren (see Introduction) refer to the pale bluish green moths with large green discal blotches on both wings. The colour of the frons was described as yellowish ochreous by Dognin, and as brick red by Warren.

Prout 1912, Prout 1932 synonymized the two names and Pitkin 1996 redescribed the genus and presented illustrations of the genital structures, including the bicornute last abdominal sternite found in males.

Additional data: The wing span is 16 mm long in our specimen (Fig. 1, right). The frons is slender, trapezoidal, higher than wide (Fig. 2b), with a thin, whitish line below. The male antenna with pectinations up to 0.8 mm lomg. Wings are covered with semi-transparent white and green scales, white scales prevailing while green scales giving moths a "punctate" appearance. Male genital armatures of the three species are very similar one to another. Telotheta muscipunctata has a row of about 20 stout curved setae to the distal margin of valva, and the thorn-like projections of the sternite A8 appear slightly diverging (Fig. 3b).

Distribution

The species is attributed a wide distribution range in the research literature, from Costa Rica and Venezuela to Peru in Western South America ( Pitkin 1996). However, the primary types of this species, as well as our material, are from the Western Cordilleras in Ecuador. See the description of Telotheta fresei sp. n.