Vartiania muscula (Rothschild, 1912)

Yakovlev, R. V., 2021, New data on the genus Vartiania Yakovlev, 2004 (Lepidoptera: Cossidae, Cossinae), Far Eastern Entomologist 429, pp. 1-7 : 2-3

Vartiania muscula (Rothschild, 1912)

Figs 1−3 , 6

Holcocerus musculus Rothschild, 1912: 452 (holotype – male, Kazakhstan: Syr-Daria ,

Baigacum; deposited in NHMUK; examined).

TYPE MATERIAL EXAMINED. Kazakhstan: male (holotype), [Southern Kazakhstan: Kyzyl-Orda Region], Syr-Daria , Baigacum [44.312917 o N, 66.479320 o E] ,

leg. Koshantschikoff ( NHMUK).

OTHER MATERIAL EXAMINED. Kazakhstan: Kyzyl-Orda Region , SyrDaria, Baigacum, 4 ♂, leg. Koshantschikoff ( ZISP, slides: Coss/ ZISP/2020-1 ;

Coss/ ZISP/2020-2 ); Uzbekistan: Nukus , 13.VIII, 1 ♂, leg. Fisher ( ZISP) .

REDESCRIPTION. Size medium. Length of fore wing 11−12 mm. Antenna simple, belt-like, not pectinate. Fore wing wide, apically blunt. Fore wing grey, wide blurred brown band discally, poorly expressed pattern of brown strokes postdiscally and submarginally. Fringe mottled, grey between veins, brown at veins. Hind wing grey, without pattern, with thin brown border and mottled fringe.

Male genitalia. Uncus conical, apically semicircular; gnathos arms short, thick,

gnathos large with small spikes of surface; valve strongly sclerotized, cup-like, distal end of valve membranous, lanceolate; juxta saddle-like with long (about 1/3 of valve in length) strongly sclerotized lateral processes, diverged at an angle of 50º;

saccus robust, semicircular; phallus thick, straight, of equal thickness throughout its length, slightly shorter than valve, apex obliquely cut, distal end strongly sclerotized abdominally, with small spike directed abdominally, strongly sclerotized spiky processes on dorsal surface (along borders of vesica aperture), vesica aperture in dorso-apical position, equals to 1/2 of phallus in length.

DIAGNOSIS. V. muscula differs clearly from the other species of the genus in the poorly modified blurred pattern of the fore wing (in the other species, the reticulated patters is distinctively expressed on the fore wing). Externally, the species is most close to the south-Iranian species V. senganensis (Daniel, 1949) ,

from which it differs in the male genital structure: the shorter membranous distal ends of the valves, the smaller juxta and the shorter phallus.

DISTRIBUTION. Southern Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan (?).

Figures

Figs 1–5. Adult males of Vartiania spp. 1–3 – V. muscula (Rothschild, 1912): 1 – ho-

Figs 6–8. Male genitalia of Vartiania spp. 6 – V. muscula (Rothschild, 1912) from Baigacum (ZISP); 7 – V. belli sp. n., holotype (NHMUK); 8 – V. gallagheri sp. n., holotype