Panthea apanthea Anweiler, 2009

Anweiler, Gary G., 2009, Revision of the New World Panthea Hübner (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae) with descriptions of 5 new species and 2 new subspecies, ZooKeys 9 (9), pp. 97-134 : 102-104

Panthea apanthea Anweiler , sp. n.

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:A120BA18-CACF-4F2C-A9D5-E7CB60A1E2D4

Figs. 1-2 , 45 , 58 , 69

Type material. Holotype male – “[ United States] White Mts. AZ [Arizona] / El. 7200-12500 ft. / 10-30 Aug 1925./ O. C. Poling coll”; “Barnes collection”; “HOLO- TYPE / Panthea apanthea / Anweiler” [red label]; “Photographed by J.D. Gill ( CNC)/ 260” [orange label]; deposited in USNM.. Paratypes (8 ♁, 2 ♀): Arizona: Coconino Co., Oak Creek Canyon, 5000', 6.viii.1986, R.H. Leuschner, coll. (1 ♁) ; same locality and collector, 7.viii.1986 (2 ♁) ; Coconino Co., 7 miles west Williams , 8-15.viii.1956, Noel McFarland, coll. (2 ♁) ; Flagstaff, 12.viii.1999, R. M. Brown, coll. (3 ♁, 1 ♀). Colorado: El Paso Co., 20 miles east Colorado Springs , 18.viii.1965, Sam Johnson (1 ♁) ; Starr Ranch nr. Colorado Springs , 16.viii.1965, 6600', Sam Johnson, coll. (1 ♀) [ CNC; RHL; RMB] .

Etymology. The name is Latin and means “not Panthea ,” and refers to the unusual structure of the genitalia, which differ so much in appearance from other American Panthea .

Diagnosis. The typical Panthea pattern will identify P. apanthea to genus, and the very small size will separate it from all other western Panthea , with the possible excep- tion of very small males of P. judyae . The lack of any sharply contrasting black lines on the forewings will separate it from all other Panthea . Internally the lack of sclerotized spines on the vesica and the lack of a heavily sclerotized sterigma are unique to P. apanthea , and unusual for Panthea .

Description. Male and female moderately dimorphic, female larger and with darker hindwing than male; forewing length: 4-15 mm (male), 18 mm (female). Head – male antenna bipectinate, pectinations approximately 1.5 × as long as width of antennal shaft, female antenna simple; palps greatly reduced, clothed in dark brownish-gray hair-like scales. Thorax – collar, thorax and tegulae a mix of dark black-brown and white hair-like scales; tegulae with two poorly defined oblique bands; femur and tibia clothed in a mixture of black and white hair; tarsus banded black and white. Dorsal forewing – with an even mixture of brownish-black and white scales, appearing gray. Lines black but not strongly contrasting with ground and difficult to trace. Basal line indicated by a small patch of black scales, antemedial line black, complete, more prominent than other lines, straight to anal vein, bending distad before continuing to lower margin; medial line faint, slightly erratic, less prominent than basal line and difficult to trace in some specimens, merging or nearly so with black scales at end of cell; postmedial line slightly more prominent and more erratic, bending distad at fold and wandering outward toward costa; subterminal line erratic, bordered on distal side mainly on upper half by a few white scales; terminal line black, broken at veins; fringe black, lightly checkered with white at veins. Normal spots obsolete, except reniform spot indicated by a small, dark, poorly defined crescent or bar at end of cell; veins lightly lined with dark scales. Dorsal hindwing (male) – white with four very faint diffuse bands formed by tiny hair-like scattered gray scales, with long pale-gray hairs along inner margin and a dark gray-black terminal line; fringe dark gray black, lightly checkered at veins. Dorsal hindwing (female) – as in male, but with a heavier dusting of small dark scales forming wider bands, appearing light gray overall. Abdomen – covered with short stiff brownishblack and white hair-like scales. Male genitalia – ( Fig. 45 ) valve relatively short, sacculus large, extending two-thirds distance across valve, with rows of small sawlike teeth along inner ridge; cucullus extending only a short distance beyond clasper, ending in a small wing-like flap folding in toward clasper; clasper large with almost half length extending past upper margin of valve, straight, tapering to a wide base; tegumen with ear-like subuncal lobes; uncus nearly obsolete, reduced to a pair of widely spaced flat rounded lobes, reminiscent of arachnid palps; aedeagus 2 × as long ventrally as dorsally; inflated vesica a short oblong sac, about 2 × as long as wide, exiting aedeagus at 90 degrees dorsad, with a large teardrop-shaped field of densely packed fleshy-appearing spines on right side near terminus; ductus exiting from terminus of vesica, oriented anteriorly. Female genitalia – ( Fig. 58 ) papillae anales large, soft, oblong, with sparse fine long setae; posterior and anterior apophyses approximately equal in size and of average length; sterigma poorly developed, lightly sclerotized, with two large shallow indentations above ostium; ductus bursae short, wide, expanding into a thicker walled wrinkled section with a series of parallel wrinkled and sclerotized “gullies” along dorsal wall, widening gradually into an oblong, thin-walled translucent corpus bursae, without signa; ductus seminalis exiting dorsad on upper right.

Distribution and biology. Panthea apanthea is known from only 10 specimens and from only three areas in the southwestern United States; Coconino County and Apache County (White Mountains) in Arizona, and El Paso County in east-central Colorado ( Fig. 69 ). It has been collected at moderate elevations (1500-2150 m) during the first three weeks of August. Nothing else is known of its biology.

Remarks. The essentially obsolete uncus, poorly developed sterigma, and the replacement of the one to three large cornuti found on the aedeagus in all other species of New World Panthea by a dense patch of fleshy spines ( Fig. 45 ), are all unique among the New World Panthea . However, similar fields of small spines are present in other genera of Pantheinae e.g., Lichnoptera decora (Morrison) ( Fig. 44 ), Colocasia coryli (L.), as well as in Panthea ronnyi Thony , recently described from North Vietnam ( Thony 1996). This suggests that the large sclerotized cornuti present in all other New World taxa is a derived character, and that P. apanthea is the most basal of the New World Panthea . Panthea apanthea has such divergent genitalia that an argument could be made for placing it in a genus of its own; however, in all other characters (form of the bipectinate antenna in male; reduced, apparently non-functional mouthparts and palps; overall color and pattern) it is placed in Panthea to maintain a more inclusive concept of the genus. DNA ‘barcode’ fragment data of cox1 mtDNA ( Ratnasingham and Hebert 2007) also places apanthea with Panthea .

Figures

Figures 1-11. Panthea adults 1. P. apanthea ♁ holotype, White Mountains, AZ, USA; 2. P. apanthea ♀, Coconino Co., AZ, USA; 3. P. reducta ♁ holotype, Pedemales N.P., DR; 4. P. judyae ♁, Grant Co., NM, USA; 5. P. judyae ♀, Cochise Co., AZ, USA; 6. P. gigantea ♁ neotype, Larimer Co., CO, USA; 7. P. gigantea ♀,Grant Co., NM, USA; 8. P. gigantea ♁, Durango, MEX; 9. P. gigantea ♀, Chihuahua, MEX; 10. P. guatemala ♁ holotype, San Lorenzo, GUA; 11. P. guatemala ♀, Oaxaca, MEX.

Figures 44-49. Panthea male genitalia 44. Lichnoptera decora, Queretero, MEX; 45. P. apanthea, El Paso Co., CO., USA; 46. P. judyae Grant Co., NM, USA; 47. P.reducta, Pedemales, DR; 48. P.gigantea, El Dorado Co., CA., USA, a. tip of uncus; 49. P. guatemala, Oaxaca MEX., a. tip of uncus, Oaxaca, b. tip of uncus, Chiapas, MEX.

Figures 58-68. Panthea female genitalia 58. P. apanthea, Coconino Co, AZ. USA; 59. P. judyae, Chihuahua, MEX; 60. P. gigantea, Chihuahua, MEX; 61. P. guatemala, Oaxaca, MEX; 62. P. virginarius, Missoula Co., MT., USA; 63. P.acronyctoides nigra, Teller Co., CO., USA;. 64. P. a. acronyctoides, Ashland Co., WI, USA; 65. P. f.furcilla, Windham Co., CT, USA; 66. P. f.furcilla-f. nigra intermediate, Dauphin Co., PA., USA; 67. P. furcilla australis, Whitfield Co., GA, USA; 68. Panthea greyi, Apache Co., AZ., USA.

Fig. 69. Distribution of examined specimens of P. virginarius, P. apanthea and P. judyae.