Commatarcha galicicae Tokar & Srnka, 2023

Tokar, Zdenko, Srnka, Ľubomir & Mutanen, Marko, 2023, Commatarcha galicicae Tokar & Srnka, sp. nov., and a genus new for Europe (Lepidoptera, Carposinidae), Nota Lepidopterologica 46, pp. 19-29 : 19

Commatarcha galicicae Tokar & Srnka sp. nov.

Material.

Holotype: North Macedonia: ♀, pinned, genitalia in a separate slide. Original labels: " Macedonia, Galičica Planina, 1570 m, 27-29.vi.2016, lgt. Ľ. Srnka", " Gp. Z. Tokár ♀ 14081", "DNA sample SDNU.ZT_21 BUCCN" (blue label), " HOLOTYPE Commatarcha galicicae Tokár & Srnka" (red label), coll. Ľ. Srnka (to be deposited in the National Slovak Museum in Bratislava). Coordinates of the type locality: 40°58'N, 20°51'E.

Paratypes: North Macedonia: 1♀, same locality and data as holotype, Gp. Z. Tokár ♀ 13777, coll. Z. Tokár; 2♂, 2♀, same locality as holotype, 14.vii.2021, Ľ. Srnka leg., Gp. Z. Tokár ♂ 14170, 14171, ♀ 14169, coll. Ľ. Srnka & Z. Tokár; Romania: 2♀, Banat, Dubova, 44°37'N, 22°15'E, 200-300 m, 17.vi.2021, TLMF Lep 32643, TLMF Lep 32675, leg. & coll. S. & Z. Kovács, Gp. Z. Tokár ♀ 14390. All paratypes with red labels " PARATYPE Commatarcha galicicae Tokár & Srnka" .

Description.

Adult, female (Figs 1 , 4 ). Forewing wingspan 14.5-19 mm, length 6.5-9 mm. Head: frons golden yellow, vertex with golden yellow to light brown scale tufts. Proboscis well-developed. Maxillary palpi not visible. Labial palpi straight, second segment 1¾ times as long as the eye diameter, outer side dark brown, most of the inner surfaces light golden yellow, apical segment short, dark brown, golden yellow at apex. Antennal flagellomeres each ringed alternately dark brown and light golden yellow. Ventral surface of flagellomeres covered with fine sensilla, length approximately half the segment diameter. Thorax tegulae dark brown to black, abdomen the same colour tinged with yellow on some segments. Forewing oblong, gradually widening. Ground colour light yellow to golden yellow. Markings dark brown to black: transverse band at base, extending towards costa, narrow strip along costal margin, irregular band approximately from 1/2 of costa to 2/3 of dorsum with extended part at discal cell pointed towards termen and distinct triangular tornal spot, broad arched band covering outer third of forewing, and small scattered dark spots or scales throughout. Dark markings brightened or interrupted by light spots or groups of scales. Fringe dark brown, yellow basally. Hindwing dark grey, fringe same colour, yellow basally.

Male (Figs 2 , 3 , 5 ). Forewing wingspan 14.5-16.5 mm, length 6.5-7.8 mm. Labial palpi and antennae sexually dimorphic. Second segment of labial palpi 1¼ times longer than the eye diameter. Fine, elongate sensilla, covering ventral surface of antennal flagellomeres, length approximately 1.5 times the segment diameter. Forewing markings as female but less pronounced.

Female genitalia (Fig. 6 ). Ovipositor moderately elongate, lobes soft; apophyses posteriores elongate, approximately 1.6 times length of apophyses anteriores. Abdominal segment VIII moderately sclerotised, covered with long bristles and spinulose; ostium bursae margins curved inwards; antrum cup-shaped, distally covered with small thorns. Sterigma laterally dilated. Sclerotised part of ductus bursae (colliculum) funnel-shaped, slightly concave, widening into a membranous, twisted swelling posterior to a slender, finely papillate area of ductus bursae. Ductus bursae gradually widening to form suboval corpus bursae; signa absent.

Male genitalia (Figs 7 , 8 ). Uncus indistinct, fused to tegumen. Gnathos absent. Valvae broad at base with protuberant lobe, outer half deeply divided into two curved digitate processes of unequal size and width. Medial process slightly shorter but twice as wide and more sclerotised than the lateral process. Ectophallus well-developed, stout and arched. Juxta ellipsoid. Vinculum and saccus well-developed, V-shaped. Phallus slender, vesica with a pair of rows of stout cornuti of various sizes.

Diagnosis.

The male and female genitalia of Commatarcha galicicae Tokár & Srnka, sp. nov. closely resemble those of C. oresbia . The male genitalia of the new species differ from C. oresbia mainly in having an indistinct uncus, and the vinculum and saccus wide and V-shaped, whilst in the latter the uncus is a small, sclerotised triangle, and the vinculum and saccus is long and rather slender. In the female genitalia, the new species can be distinguished from C. oresbia by the different characters of the ostium and ductus bursae; posterior margin of the ostium bursae and the margins of the colliculum being concave, whilst in C. oresbia they are convex.

In addition, both species differ significantly from each other in external appearance. Externally the new species is somewhat similar to several Chinese Commatarcha species ( C. acidodes , C. convoluta , C. fanjingshana ), but perhaps the most similar looking species is the American species Bondia comonana . However, all these species differ considerably in the structure of the genitalia of both sexes.

Distribution.

So far only known from the two localities, the Galičica Mountain, North Macedonia, and Dubova, Banat region, Mehedinţi County, Romania.

Biology.

Adults of the new species were on the wing in the second half of June and in July. The habitat of the locality in the Galičica Mountain has a forest-steppe character. We observed the following tree/shrub species there: Fagus sylvatica L., Corylus sp., Prunus sp., Rubus sp., Juniperus sp., Acer sp., Abies sp., Quercus sp., Amelanchier sp., Aria sp., and others. This biotope is shown in Fig. 9 . It is worth noting that specimens of another carposinid species Carposina scirrhosella were found in the same biotope and at the same time as our new species.

The Romanian specimens were collected in a limestone area near Dubova covered with grassy vegetation and plenty of Syringa L., and Cotinus coggygria Scop. bushes, and the presence of a mixed forest dominated by Carpinus betulus L., Quercus sp., and also with Acer campestre L. ( Zoltán and Sándor Kovács pers. comm.).

The biology of Commatarcha species is very little known. The life history of Commatarcha palaeosema Meyrick, 1935 was described by Yano (1959) from Japan. According to the author the larva of the species feeds under the bark of the trunks and branches of Castanopsis cuspidata (Thunb.) Schottky, Quercus glauca Thunb., and Q. serrata Murray, and considerably injures them producing a remarkable protuberance or gall-like swelling. He observed that usually a number of larvae bore into the same swellings and eject small reddish pellets of frass and woody fragments. Of the closely related American species included in the genus Bondia , the best known is Bondia comonana , which can form stem galls on Prunus or Quercus trees ( Powell and Opler 2009; Robinson et al. 2010). We can only surmise that the larva of our new species also develops in a similar way in the galls of some tree or shrub species occurring in the type localities.

Etymology.

The specific name Commatarcha galicicae , a noun in the genitive case, is derived from the Galičica Mountain, where the first specimens of the new species were discovered.

Molecular data

(Figs 10 , 11 ). The DNA barcoded specimens form a unique BIN: BOLD:AEH8633. Sequences in this BIN are highly divergent to other BINs with a minimum p-distance of 8.05% to the closest BIN ( Bondia crescentella (Walsingham, 1882)). The Macedonian specimen shows 4-5 nucleotide substitutions compared to the two Romanian specimens, which differ from each other by one substitution.

Discussion.

As mentioned in the Introduction, the Palaearctic Commatarcha species are very close to American Bondia species morphologically. According to the molecular data, these two genera are closely related but not reciprocally monophyletic in the Maximum likelihood tree, although this finding is based on a single mitochondrial marker only. None of the analyses based on COI-5P show threshold support (e.g.>70% bootstrap) for major geographic clusters. However, for species of Commatarcha very little genetic data are available, for which reason confirmation of this observation should be verified by broader genetic and taxonomic sampling. It was the incomplete sampling of Commatarcha and genetic similarity of the American species of Bondia that led us in the wrong direction when we initially placed our new species in the genus Bondia . Only a more thorough comparison of male and female genitalia of C. galicicae Tokár & Srnka, sp. nov. showed that is actually morphologically closer to some Asiatic species of Commatarcha . Generally, species of Palaearctic Commatarcha and American Bondia have many morphological features in common, including sexually dimorphic antennae, the uncus of the male genitalia with a small conical lobe, the absence of a gnathos, the valva with processes, a well developed and usually arched ectophallus and the female genitalia with a heavily sclerotized colliculum and signa absent. By contrast, the Australian B. nigella , the type species of the genus, has the valva without processes in the male genitalia and the corpus bursae with signa in the female genitalia, representing significant differences from the above mentioned groups. Moreover, Australian Bondia species form a separate cluster in the DNA barcoding trees (Figs 10 , 11 ). Davis (1969) considered that it may be decided after an adequate study of all the species has been completed that the Australian species and North American species of Bondia require separate generic or subgeneric placements but he did not have sufficient data to change their generic position at that time. Diakonoff (1989) showed on morphological grounds that Asiatic species, previously placed in the genus Bondia , are not congeneric with the Australian type species, and moved them all to Commatarcha . He also supported Davis’ doubts about the similarities of Bondia from the American and Australian continents but this was not followed up with taxonomic actions. According to current knowledge we are convinced that the Palaearctic Commatarcha and American Bondia groups are congeneric and therefore a comprehensive revision of Australian and American Bondia species would be required.

The discovery of Commatarcha galicicae Tokár & Srnka, sp. nov. shows that the fauna of the Galičica Mountain is still insufficiently studied and can provide discoveries of hitherto unknown species. For example, the new species Platyptilia galicicaensis has recently been described from there ( Junnilainen and Kaitila 2017). Galičica is characterized by a high incidence of endemic plants ( Matevski et al. 2011), which also indicates the presence of endemic insect species there. After the first discovery, we assumed that our new species might be endemic to this area. However, the subsequent findings in south-western Romania point to a wider distribution of the species. The question arises as to whether C. galicicae represents another newly introduced or recently spread species from the regions of Western or Central Asia, or if it is an “old” European species that had remained undiscovered until now. The two nearly simultaneous discoveries from two different areas in the same year suggest that the species is a recent addition to the fauna of this region.

Figures

Figure 1. Commatarcha galicicae Tokar & Srnka, sp. nov., female, holotype, Galicica Planina, 27 - 29. vi. 2016. Scale bar: 3.0 mm.

Figure 6. Female genitalia of Commatarcha galicicae Tokar & Srnka, sp. nov., paratype, Gp. Z. Tokar ♀ 13777, dorsal view. Scale bar: 1.0 mm.

Figure 9. Type-locality of Commatarcha galicicae Tokar & Srnka, sp. nov. in the Galicica Mountain.

Figure 10. A Neighbor Joining tree of Commatarcha galicicae Tokar & Srnka, sp. nov. (shown in bold face) and selected closely related species based on COI sequences. Numbers are bootstrap percentages. Scale bar represents 2 % K 2 P genetic divergence between sequences.

Figure 11. A Maximum Likelihood tree of Commatarcha galicicae Tokar & Srnka, sp. nov. (shown in bold face) and selected closely related species based on COI sequences. Numbers are bootstrap percentages. Scale bar represents 2 % difference (GTR model) between sequences.

Figures 4, 5. Commatarcha galicicae Tokar & Srnka, sp. nov., heads 4. Female, holotype, Galicica Planina, 27 - 29. vi. 2016; 5. Male, paratype, Galicica Planina, 14. vii. 2021.

Figures 2, 3. Commatarcha galicicae Tokar & Srnka, sp. nov., males, paratypes, Galicica Planina, 14. vii. 2021. Scale bar: 3.0 mm.

Figures 7, 8. Male genitalia of Commatarcha galicicae Tokar & Srnka, sp. nov., paratypes 7. Gp. Z. Tokar ♂ 14170, dorsal view. Scale bar: 0.5 mm; 8. Gp. Z. Tokar ♂ 14171, valva. Scale bar 0.5 mm.