Ptilothyris Walsingham, 1897

Park, Kyu-Tek, Mey, Wolfram, Koo, Jun-Mo, Prins, Jurate De & Cho, Soowon, 2019, Revision of the genus Ptilothyris Walsingham, 1897 (Lepidoptera: Gelechioidea: Lecithoceridae), with descriptions of eight new species from Africa, Zootaxa 4567 (2), pp. 201-235 : 205

Genus Ptilothyris Walsingham, 1897

Transactions of the Entomological Society of London, 1897: 37. Type species: Ptilothyris purpurea Walsingham, 1897 . Type locality (TL): Nigeria. [ NHMUK]

The type species, P. purpurea Walsingham was described on the basis of three syntype specimens: two males collected from Lagos, Nigeria (leg. G. Carter) and a female collected from Kangwé, Ogowé River, French Congo [present day Gabon] (leg. A. C. Good); a male, designated as the lectotype here, and a female are deposited in NHMUK, and the other male is in CMP.

Diagnostic characteristics of the genus are as follows:

Antenna shorter than forewing; strongly bipectinate; basal half or slightly longer usually dark brown and more thickened, the rest white and slightly serrate in male, but brown and serrate in female.

Forewing ground color dark purple, with broad blackish antemedian fascia bearing some erect scales and postmedian fascia usually indistinct; venation with R 3 and R 4 stalked, R 5 absent; M 2 present, M 3, CuA 1 and CuA 2 on common stalk. Hind wing usually having a semi-transparent, yellowish white patch beneath costal margin and with a tuft of grayish hair-scales at base of vein 1A+2A in male, but those absent in female; venation with M 2 absent— Walsingham (1897) stated that R 3 is absent, and R 4 and R 5 are stalked in forewing, but it might be due to a misreading R 3 as R 4. All the new species described herein do not have M 2 in hind wing.

Abdomen usually dark brown dorsally, with sometimes pale-orange anal tuft, and with a pair of long hairpencils dorso-laterally along anterior margin of the segment VIII; male genitalia with uncus broadened, fanshaped; gnathos with basal plate trifurcate posteriorly; juxta consisting of double plates, ventral plate with welldeveloped caudal process, dorsal plate usually short with triangular processes laterally; and female genitalia with corpus bursae usually having a hood-shaped signum.

The genus is superficially similar to Thubdora Park, 2018 in wing venation, but it can be distinguished by the forewing more elongated and the antenna strongly bipectinate, usually dark brown dorsally and more or less flattened in basal half or longer, then white beyond. The male genitalia can also be distinguished from those of Thubdora by the following characters: (i) uncus broadly developed, as wide as the basal plate of gnathos, fanshaped; (ii) gnathos with broad basal plate, usually trifurcate caudally with semi-ovate median lobe and similar sized lateral lobes, rarely with convex caudal margin; (iii) juxta forming double plates, long ventral plate and dorsal plate; (iv) female genitalia with a hood-shaped signum.