Wittia de Freina, 1980

Macià, Ramon, Ylla, Josep, Gastón, Javier, Huertas, Manuel & Bau, Josep, 2022, The species of Eilema Hübner, [1819] sensu lato present in Europe and North Africa (Lepidoptera: Erebidae: Arctiinae: Lithosiini), Zootaxa 5191 (1), pp. 1-87 : 45

Genus Wittia de Freina, 1980

Wittia de Freina, 1980 . Nachrichtenblatt der Bayerischen Entomologen 29 (4):80.

Type species: Bombyx aureola Hübner, [1803] 1796 ; Sammlung Europäischer Schmetterlinge 3: pl. 24, fig. 98, subsequent designation by Moore, 1878; Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1878: 18.

Diagnosis.

Imago. Forewings moderately wide with a curvature of the costal margin, yellow, without pattern.

Male genitalia. Uncus very long and narrow; valvae ovoid and weakly sclerotised; saccular process apically sclerotised, long, curved upwards; juxta without apical process; vinculum short, bilobed. Aedeagus with an apical process; vesica short pouch-shaped with indistinct short lobes and several rather similar cornuti.

Female genitalia. Very short and narrow ductus bursae, moderately sclerotised and the anterior partially sclerotised appendix, in part helical. The corpus bursae is relatively small, discoidal-globular.

Molecular data. A single species of this genus ( Wittia sororcula ) has been analysed, so we cannot be certain if the results presented for this species would also apply to the whole genus. According Dubatolov (2011), there are many more species included in Wittia , for example Wittia klapperichi (Daniel, 1954) and Wittia yazakii Dubatolov, Kishida & Wang, 2012 . None of them have been available to the authors and so it has not been possible to include their study in the present work.

Future molecular studies including species placed in the genus Wittia will provide additional insight into this genus.

Taxa included.

Wittia sororcula ( Hufnagel, 1766)