Stomopteryx lacteolella Turati, 1924

Bidzilya, Oleksiy, Karsholt, Ole, Kravchenko, Vasiliy & Šumpich, Jan, 2019, An annotated checklist of Gelechiidae (Lepidoptera) of Israel with description of two new species, Zootaxa 4677 (1), pp. 1-68 : 15-16

Stomopteryx lacteolella Turati, 1924

Stomopteryx lacteolella Turati, 1924 —Atti Mus. Civ. Milano 63: 166.

Stomopteryx lacteolella f. unipunctella Turati, 1924 —Atti Mus. Civ. Milano 63: 166, pl. 6, fig. 10.

Material examined. 3 ♂, Negev, Nahal (Wadi) Zin, 8.x.1999 (Pavlíček) (gen. slide 19007, J. Šumpich) ( NMPC) .

Diagnosis. Stomopteryx lacteolella can easily be recognized externally by its light, yellowish brown forewing with a brown dot in the cell corner and dark brown apex. The male genitalia are rather similar to those of S. deter- sella (Zeller, 1847), but S. lacteolella has broader valvae bulging anteriorly whereas they are boomerang-shaped in S. detersella . Vinculum surrounding phallus has a triangular sclerotization in S. detersella but it is straight thornshaped in S. lacteolella . Moreover, the phallus is more robust, with shorter ventral process and larger sclerotized apical hook in S. lacteolella .

Distribution. Libya, Israel (new record).

Remarks. Stomopteryx lacteolella was described from one specimen from Benghazi (“Berca”) in Libya. Turati (1924: 166) wrote (here translated from Italian): ”Of this species recently described by Dumont was collected only one exemplar...”. However, no description of a lacteolella Dumont seems to exist, and the name should therefore by ascribed to Turati. Moreover he was of the opinion that his specimen was a form of (the undescribed) S. lacteolella Dumont. As Turati had only one specimen the name unipunctella becomes an objective synonym of S. lacteolella . This species seems to be known only from the holotype. It has not been been dealt with in the literature since its description, apart from a few catalogues and websites. The specimen from Israel ( Fig. 15 ) matches the colour figure of the holotype well.

Here we describe the male genitalia for the first time.

Male genitalia ( Fig. 16 ). Uncus subtriangular, slightly longer than broad, lateral folds densely covered with long hair-like setae, extending anteriorly to middle of tegumen; gnathos narrow, ring-shaped; tegumen narrow, parallel-sided to 2/3 length, then weakly narrowed, with indistinct transition to uncus; valva narrow at base, ventral margin distinctly broadened in middle, apex rounded, extending nearly to mid length of the uncus; vinculum with a pair of rounded lobes surrounding the phallus; phallus swollen in basal third, distal portion narrow, weakly curved, pointed apically, ventral process stout, separated from the phallus by wide gap, subtriangular, strongly narrowed towards distinct apical hook.

Figures

FIGS 15, 16. Stomopteryx lacteolella Turati. 15. Adult. 16. Male genitalia (gen. slide 19007, J. Šumpich).