Argyrotaenia citrana (Fernald, 1889)

Trematerra, Pasquale & Brown, John W., 2004, Synopsis and descriptions of two new species, Zootaxa 574, pp. 1-12 : 8

Argyrotaenia citrana (Fernald, 1889)

Argyrotaenia citrana is known as the orange tortrix or apple skinworm in the older American economic literature. It occurs along the West Coast of North America from Canada to Mexico. We have examined specimens from British Columbia, Canada; Washington, Oregon, California, U.S.A.; and Baja California, Mexico. Freeman (1944) and Obraztsov (1961) both reported it only from the West Coast of North America. Powell (1964) stated that it is one of the most polyphagous species of North America Lepidoptera .

Bondar (1915) reported A. citrana as attacking Citrus in Brazil, and this record probably was the source of subsequent citations of the species in South America (e.g., Essig 1926, Ebeling 1959). However, Bondar (1929) had reported this an error in identification (see Powell 1964). It is likely that this species also was misidentified by Pastrana (in litt.) based on the previous literature, and we have no direct evidence that A. citrana occurs in Argentina .

Based on evidence from mitochondrial DNA and laboratory hybridization trials, Landry et al. (1999) concluded that A. citrana is not clearly distinct from A. franciscana . Although they did not propose the synonymy of the two, their data strongly suggest that neither species is monophyletic relative the other. Hence the two may be considered more appropriately as synonyms, with A. franciscana as the correct name based on priority.