Phthorimaea pendens, Meyrick, 1918

Bidzilya, Oleksiy V., 2021, A review of the genus Scrobipalpa Janse, 1951 (Lepidoptera, Gelechiidae) in the Afrotropical region, Zootaxa 5070 (1), pp. 1-83 : 45

[No available genus] pendens Meyrick, 1918

Phthorimaea pendens Meyrick, 1918: 18 .

Scrobipalpa pendens ( Meyrick, 1918) — Janse 1951: 213, pl. 39, fig. 7, pl. 93, fig. 5, pl. 98, fig. 12.

Remarks. Phthorimaea pendens was described from a single male collected in Melmoth, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The species is characterized by a yellowish-brown forewing with three brown spots in the cell connected to each other and to the costal margin by an interrupted brown narrow line. Randomly scattered shiny silvery scales are characteristic as well. The basally swollen phallus with an apical hook, a well-developed culcitula, a valva divided into a sacculus and cucullus in male genitalia indicate the possible assignment of the species to subfamily Gelechiinae . The long medial process on the anterior margin of the vinculum resembles a feature in the genus Scrobipalpomima Povolný 1985 (Gnorimoschemini) , but other characters do not agree with that placement, and I am unable to propose a viable genus to accommodate this species.