Phyllocnistis Zeller, 1848

Triberti, Paolo, Staude, Hermann, Sharp, Ian & Lopez-Vaamonde, Carlos, 2024, Exploring the diversity of Gracillariidae (Lepidoptera) in South Africa: host plants, distribution, and DNA barcoding analysis, with the description of nine new species, Zootaxa 5529 (1), pp. 1-51 : 27

Phyllocnistis Zeller, 1848

The taxonomic position of this genus has long been uncertain. De Prins & Kawahara (2009) and Brito et al. (2017) conducted a thorough review of its history and pointed out that the existing taxonomic literature greatly underestimates its diversity. These moths are difficult to identify, primarily due to their small size (maximum 7 mm wingspan), a lack of distinguishing characteristics in their genitalia, and weak chitinization, which often makes interpreting abdominal structures problematic. Currently, there are 117 described species within the Phyllocnistis genus, with only five species known to occur in the Afrotropics (De Prins & De Prins 2011–2023b): P. saligna (Zeller, 1839) , P. citrella Stainton, 1856 , P. pharetrucha Meyrick, 1921 , P. cassiella (Ghesquière, (1940), P. loxosticha Bradley, 1965 . Of these, only citrella and pharetrucha have been recorded in South Africa. This study describes three new species for the region and tentatively proposes identification keys for Afrotropical species. The forewing patterns were used because several informative diagnostic characters have recently been identified, such as colour, shape, size, and location of corresponding fasciae and strigulae ( Kawahara et al. 2009; Kobayashi et al. 2011; Brito et al. 2017; Brito et al. 2019; Kirichenko et al. 2018). For a complete description of the pattern elements, refer to Brito et al. (2017). It was possible to examine the forewing pattern for all species except P. cassiella , for which only the original description was used.