Amicta Heylaerts, 1881

Arnscheid, Wilfried R., Rajaei, Hossein & Sobczyk, Thomas, 2021, A taxonomic review of the genus Amicta Heylaerts, 1881 in North Africa, Near and Middle East (Lepidoptera, Psychidae, Oiketicinae, Acanthopsychini), Zootaxa 5071 (3), pp. 349-368 : 352-353

Amicta Heylaerts, 1881

Amicta Heylaerts, 1881 , Annales de la Société entomologique de Belgique, 25: 66 (key), 70.

Type species: Psyche quadrangularis Christoph, 1873 , by subsequent designation by Hampson (1893).

Hyalopteronia Solyanikov, 2002 syn. nov.

Description. Middle-sized to large moths, male wingspan 23–36 mm. Head, thorax and abdomen covered with long brown hairs. Eyes large, roundish, widely separated, eye-distance distinctly larger than eye-diameter. Labial palps reduced. Antenna with 24–40 segments, bipectinate; pecten ciliated, dorsally scaled. Wings stretched, moderately elongate, costal margin slightly curved or straight, apex rounded, termen oblique; forewings with 10 veins from dc, mostly with r3 and r4 stalked, intercalary cell and accessory cell absent; brownish grey or blackish brown, covered with hair-like scales. Hindwing with 6 veins from dc, rr and Sc short fused towards margin. Foreleg with a long tibial epiphysis; spurs formula: 0-0-2 (hindleg with apical tibial spurs). Female apterous. Head, wings and legs completely reduced. Does not leave the pupal exuviae.

Male genitalia. Elongate in general appearance, tegumen roundish or tapered, slightly folded laterally and distally, in some species distally indented, covered with short hairs. Valvae long, mostly extending far beyond the distal end of tegumen, apically rounded and covered with short setae. Clasper of sacculus elongate, slender, distally narrower and apically covered with short spines. Anellus short, pointed. Vinculum broad, nearly rectangular. More or less indented laterally. Saccus long, triangular or tubular, caudally distinctly pointed or spoon-shaped roundish. Phallus variable in size, same length as or longer than genitalia, straight or slightly bent, with distinct roundish enlargement caudally, vesica covered with short cornuti.

Diagnosis. Amicta was established as subgenus of Acanthopsyche Heylaerts, 1881 . Treated as part of the tribe Acanthopsychini by Sauter & Hättenschwiler (1991: 82) and Sobczyk (2011: 48). Amicta and Acanthopsyche could be diagnosed by following characters: Amicta has 10 veins from dc on forewing and 6 veins on hindwing ( Acanthopsyche has 9 veins on forewing and 5 veins on hindwing). The male genitalia show following diagnostic characters: the genitalia of Amicta is generally elongated with thinner valvae (genitalia and valvae are broader and stouter in Acanthopsyche ); phallus of Amicta has the same length or longer than the genitalia (length of phallus in Acanthopsyche is two-thirds shorter than genitalia, or even shorter). The larval cases of these two genera are totally different; the larval case of Amicta is distinctly four-edged, covered transversely with various plant debris, especially grass twigs (larval case in Acanthopsyche is tubular, longitudinally covered with plant debris).

Amicta shows some similarity in general appearance and venation to the genus Oiketicoides , but, they are distinctly differ by the male genitalia. Especially the general shape of the male genitalia as well as abdominal sclerites are very characteristic in each genus, and highly uniform inside of each genus.

Male genitalia of Oiketicoides species remind in general appearance at an “inverted shark”. The valvae are short and broad, they do not protrude beyond the distal end of the tegumen. The clasper is curved inwards and bears about 6 pointed conical spines distally. The vinculum is long and narrow, not broad and nearly rectangular as in Amicta ; at the broadest with small, protruding lobes at the sides which are absent in Amict a and which size varies with the species. The vinculum continues evenly into a saccus, which is usually thickened again at the end. The larval case of Oiketicoides differs distinctly from Amicta . It is not four-edged but tubular and longitudinally covered with twigs which often protrude the distal end of the case.

Distribution. Up to now, 12 described species are distributed only in the Near East and Middle East ( Iran, Irak, Palestine, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan) and in North Africa ( Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Mauretania (and three species on the Canary Islands).

Bionomics. All species are inhabitants of xerothermic habitats, often in desert or semi-desert areas. Less is known about the preferred foodplants of the caterpillars. The larvae of Amicta are polyphagous on different herbs and shrubs. Caterpillars of Oiketicoides dig into soil for pupation. In contrast pupation of Amicta takes place on shrubs or rocks whereby the female caterpillars pupate more higher than the male ones. It is obvious that the larval stages take longer phase of inactivity during the hottest and driest months of the year. The lack of nutrition in their very xerothermic habitats in deserts, semideserts and other similar biotops may be the reason for this behaviour. In contrast to most Psychidae species, the adults of all Amicta species appear in the late summer or early autumn from August to October. Reared specimen are very rare in collections due to their very special life history. The adults always fly by night and are attracted to artificial light.

Discussion. The genus Hyalopteronia with the type species H. davarica was established by Solyanikov in 2002. He characterized the genus as follows: foreleg with epiphysis, mid- and hindtibia without spurs, antennae bipectinate, but these features do not provide any differences to Amicta . The only significant difference to Amictoides (= Oiketicoides ) that remains is the reduced number of forewing veins from the dc: 9 in Hyalopteronia , 10 in Amictoides . However, this measurement is incorrect. The holotype shows 10 veins from dc. The veins of the male material available to us show r1 and r2 approximated, which is difficult to see under the dense scales at the front edge. A median merging of r1 and r2 was also found on one wing of one specimen. To this extent, this feature is subject to a certain individual variability. The veins m1, m2 and m3 are also present, whereby m2 + m3 are regularly stalked. This is also the case in the HT. According to Solyanikov, however, there should only be two m-veins. Looking closer to the mentioned characteristics, there can be no doubt that Hyalopteronia is a younger objective synonym of Amicta Heylaerts 1881 .