Paraswammerdamia conspersella ( Tengström, 1848 ) (Yponomeutidae)

Landry, Jean-François, Nazari, Vazrick, Dewaard, Jeremy R., Mutanen, Marko, Lopez-Vaamonde, Carlos, Huemer, Peter & Hebert, Paul D. N., 2013, Shared but overlooked: 30 species of Holarctic Microlepidoptera revealed by DNA barcodes and morphology, Zootaxa 3749 (1), pp. 1-93 : 20-21

10. Paraswammerdamia conspersella ( Tengström, 1848) (Yponomeutidae)

Tinea conspersella Tengström, 1848: 112 . Type locality: Finland.

BOLD:AAC7755

Palearctic distribution. Northern Europe and Northwestern Russia .

New North American records. Canada: Québec: Îles de la Madeleine, Île Grande-Entrée, two series (30 specimens) reared from Empetrum nigrum in 1998 and 1999 from the same location ( CNC); Havre-Saint-Pierre, 26 Jul 2012, 1 ♂; Parc national de l'Archipel de Mingan , 3–13 Aug 2012, 2 ♂ ( CNC) .

Diagnosis. Superficially somewhat similar to the preceding species, with the head and dorsum of thorax with a variable mixture of whitish grey and brown; the forewing has a pale grey ground colour mottled with dark brown nearly coalescing with the medial dark-brown patch of the hind margin to form a diffuse transverse fascia; the white subapical patch is somewhat inconspicuous. The colouration varies significantly among the Quebec specimens, the majority resembling the one illustrated, but some specimens are darker, similar to Swammerdamia caesiella (Hübner) . European specimens are paler, predominantly pale grey with a more conspicuous median transverse fascia. In male genitalia, conspersella is easily distinguished from albicapitella : the socius lobes are bifurcate with stout spines at the apices and in the middle of the bifurcation, the valva has a proportionally smaller sacculus and the apical margin set with several stout spiniform setae, and the phallus has a row of fine spinules on one side. In female genitalia, the sterigma lobes are broad, subtriangular and subequal in length to S8, and that segment is narrowly transverse, and the bursa has a signum.

Larval host. Empetrum nigrum (Empetraceae) , a widespread circumpolar plant. In Québec the plant occurs along the lower St. Lawrence River and around the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Note. The species was first found in 1998–1999 in the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence by conservation biologists monitoring coastal habitats who noted heavy larval damage at a single location in a small area. There was no evidence of similar signs of damage at other locations despite the host plant being widely distributed in the islands. This pattern suggested a recent introduction, but given its larval host, the species seemed an unlikely candidate for human-mediated introduction. JFL suspected that it could be more widespread around the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but overlooked, given that there are relatively few records of any Microlepidoptera from that region. Specimens collected on the northern coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 2012 by Carle Bélanger confirmed the latter.