Sophronia gelidella Nordman, 1941

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 : 40-41

28. Sophronia gelidella Nordman, 1941 ( Gelechiidae : Gelechiidae )

Sophronia gelidella Nordman, 1941: 21 . Type locality: Finland.

BOLD:AAF4739

Palearctic distribution. Northern Europe , Russia .

New North American records. Canada: Yukon, summit of Grey Mountain , alpine zone, swept from alpine vegetation with extensive patches of Dryas in afternoon 14 Jul 2006, 2 ♂ ( CNC, POHL) .

Diagnosis. This species has the forewing with a slightly arcuate tip which is quite distinctive. In the forewing the apex is dark brown contrasting with the paler disc and is preceded by a paler transverse, chevron band. In male genialia, the uncus is slightly indented apically, the gnathos is a large hook, the valvae are thin, straight rods with a clubbed apex, the saccular processes are very thin and less than half the length of the valvae, and the phallus distal half has a sclerotized rod and a subapical dentiform process. In female genitalia, the posterior apophyses are longer than the ductus bursae, S8 including the ostium weakly sclerotized, smooth, the narrowly funnel-shaped antrum is well sclerotized and reaches about three-quarters the length of anterior apophyses, and the signum is a sublinguiform plate with irregular edges and more darkly melanized extremities.

Larval host. Dryas octopetala (Rosaceae) . No specimens have apparently been reared from larvae, but one specimen in the Zoological Museum of Oulu, Finland, was reared from a pupa found between two leaves of Dryas (MM) . Also, the adult occurrence is always restricted to sites with Dryas .

Note. This is likely another Holarctic species with an arctic-alpine distribution in North America where its food plant occurs. The Yukon records (two male specimens) were collected on a mountain in the alpine zone with an abundance of Dryas .