Depressaria albarracinella Corley

Buchner, Peter, Corley, Martin & Junnilainen, Jari, 2017, Three new species and one new subspecies of Depressariinae (Lepidoptera) from Europe, ZooKeys 684, pp. 119-154 : 120-125

Depressaria albarracinella Corley sp. n.

Type locality.

Spain, Granada, Sierra Nevada, Collado del Lobo, north side, 2300 m.

Holotype.

♂ Sierra Nevada, Collado del Lobo, North Side, 2300 m, 14.vii.1969 | Hispania mer. K. Sattler & D.J. Carter. BM 1970-26 | HOLOTYPE Depressaria albarracinella Corley, teste M. Corley, 2004 | B.M. ♂ Genitalia slide No. 30716 | Corley prep. 1915m.

Paratypes.

Spain: ♀ Sierra Nevada, Collado del Lobo, North Side, 2300 m, 14.vii.1969, Hisp. mer. K. Sattler & D.J. Carter. BM 1970-26, Depressaria albarracinella Corley, det. M. Corley, 2004; ♂ Prov. Granada, Sierra Nevada, Puerto de la Ra gua, 1000m, 1.vii.1969 K. Sattler & D.J. Carter. NHMUK prep. 18856 (NHMUK); ♀ Andalusia, Sierra Nevada, Camina de Veleta, 2300 m, 23.x.1983, leg. E. Traugott-Olsen (ZMUC); 6 ♂♂, 2 ♀♀, Spain, Almería, Sierra de los Filabres, Alto del Calar del Gallinero, 1900-2022m, 17.-18.vi.2007, J. Šumpich leg. et det. (NMPC); 2 ♀♀, Spain, Almería, Sierra de los Filabres, route Purchena - Senés, 1600m, 16.vi.2007, J. Šumpich leg. et det. (NMPC); ♂ Castellón, Banderetta Pass, 800 m, 17.vii.1992, leg. M. Fibiger (ZMUC); ♂ Teruel, Albarracin, Val de Vecar, 1250 m, 17-18.vii.1981, leg. M. Fibiger (ZMUC) (Corley gen. prep. 1711); ♀ Teruel, Albarracin, Val de Vecar, 15.vii.1992. M. Fibiger (ZMUC) (Corley gen. prep. 1717); ♂ Teruel, Albarracin, 1150 m, 3.v.2002, leg. K. Černý, det. P. Buchner; ♀ Zaragosa, Bujareloz, 6 km, ♀, 300m 29.v.2015, leg. J. Viehmann, det P. Buchner; ♂ Huesca, Candasnos, 10 km S, 30.v.2015, leg. J. Viehmann, det P. Buchner.

Other material examined.

Greece: ♂ Central Greece, Parnassos Mountains, 1 km NE Arachova, 1070 m, 9.vi.2013, leg. P. Skou (ZMUC), det. P. Buchner; 2♂♂ Lesbos, Molivos, 6.vi.1994 (gen.prep. DEEUR 5398) and 7.vi.1994, leg. J.P. Baungaard (ZMUC), det. P. Buchner

Diagnosis.

Externally D. albarracinella differs from other species of the veneficella group in the very weak or obsolete dark forewing markings and the absence of a dark spot at base of dorsum, but it is more reliably separated from other species in the group by various characters involving different proportions of one part of the male genitalia relative to another. This is best set out in a key.

The key below includes only the European species. D. pentheri Rebel, 1904 is omitted due to insufficient knowledge of this taxon. The North African D. deverrella Chrétien, 1915, has sometimes been listed as present in France, but we can find no evidence for this.

Key to males of European species of Depressaria veneficella group (see comparison in Fig. 1)

Key to females of European species of Depressaria veneficella group

Description. Adult (Figs 2-4). Wingspan 23-26 mm. Head cinnamon-brown on neck and crown; face light brownish buff. Labial palp with segment 3 two-thirds length of segment 2, segment 2 buff with tufted scales on ventral side cinnamon; segment 3 cinnamon with dark grey ring beyond middle, tip cinnamon-buff. Antenna light grey-brown, narrowly ringed dark brown. Thorax light brownish buff, rarely darker. Forewing light brown, often with slight cinnamon tinge, often very weakly marked but sometimes with more or less faint grey-brown interrupted streaks in cell, in fold, beyond cell, between veins to costa and between veins to termen; occasionally a faint brown spot is present at base of dorsum; equally indistinct grey-brown spots between vein-ends at termen; cilia light brown, without obvious cilia line. Hindwing light grey, slightly darker posteriorly, with narrow grey-brown line around terminal and dorsal margins; cilia light grey-brown at apex to almost white at dorsal base, with a fine darker cilia line. Abdomen light grey-brown.

Variation: The forewing markings vary from almost completely obsolete to present but faint compared with most other Depressaria species. The specimen from Huesca, Spain (Fig. 4) is the most strongly marked that we have seen. Sometimes a faint V-shaped pale fascia is visible beyond end of cell.

Male genitalia (Fig. 5). Gnathos elongate; socii elongate, parallel-sided, divergent; valva almost as long as aedeagus, apex incurved, sacculus with two lobes, the inner broadly triangular, the second longer and narrower, slightly incurved; anellus broadly pyriform, distal margin slightly emarginated; saccus triangular, of similar length to anellus; aedeagus slender with slightly expanded base, cornutus about two-fifths length of aedeagus.

Female genitalia (Fig. 6). Anterior margin of sternite VIII with median sinus, ostium close to posterior margin; ductus bursae long, without swellings or ornamentation; signum small, wider than long, not as wide as ductus bursae in most of its length.

Molecular data.

Data of barcoded specimens. TLMF Lep 19062 (658 bp.[1n], ♀, Spain, Aragon, Albarracin, 40°25'N; 1°27'W, 3.v.2003, leg. et coll. K. Cerny, gen. prep. DEEUR 1786); TLMF Lep 19150 (658 bp.[0n], ♂, Spain, Huesca, Candasnos, 41°30'N; 0°40'E, 30.v.2015, leg. J. Viehmann, coll. W. Schmitz, gen. prep. DEEUR 3903); TLMF Lep 17687 (658 bp.[0n], ♂, Greece, Parnassos Mountains, 1 km NW Arachova, 1070 m, 38°29'N; 22°35'E, 9.vi.2013, leg. P. Skou, coll. ZMUC, gen. prep. DEEUR 2326).

Neighbour-joining analysis (Fig. 7) shows Depressaria eryngiella as the nearest neighbour with 2.45% p-distance. Intraspecific variability, based on present knowledge, 0% within the Spanish population and 1.08% between Spanish and Greek populations.

For Maximum Likelihood analysis, see Fig. 70.

Etymology.

The species name is an adjective derived from Albarracin in Spain, an area where two of the paratypes were taken.

Distribution.

Spain: Mountain areas of Eastern Spain from Sierra Nevada and Sierra de Los Filabres northwards, in the provinces of Granada, Almería, Castellón, Teruel, Zaragosa and Huesca. Greece: Parnassos Mountains in Central Greece, Lesbos.

Bionomics.

Larva and food-plant unknown, but the latter is likely to belong to Apiaceae . Adult moths have been taken in May, June, July and October. It is probable that overwintering takes place in the adult stage, but less clear when the larvae would be feeding.

Remarks.

The genus Depressaria Haworth, 1811 includes around 125 species ( Wikipedia 2016) with the greatest number in the Palaearctic region. The majority of the species are rather similar externally, but for the most part, the male genitalia give clear differences between species. Indeed there is such diversity in genital morphology within the genus that it is difficult to characterise the genus using genitalia characters. Within this great diversity there are some clearly defined groups, with a number of species sharing a suite of genitalia characters. One such group is the veneficella group (Hannemann, 1953), currently with 13 species described from the Palaearctic region extending from western Europe and North Africa through the Middle East to central Asia, with the most eastern records from north-east China, Mongolia and the Altai region of Siberia. Lvovsky (1996) when describing D. erzurumella Lvovsky, 1996 from Turkey, provided a key based on male genitalia to 11 species, omitting D. pentheri Rebel, 1904, which was known only from the female. Subsequently he described D. kailai Lvovsky, 2009 ( Lvovsky 2009). The new species, D. albarracinella , belongs to this group.

The veneficella group is characterised by rather long wings, forewings brown with pattern usually consisting of blackish streaks between the veins, but the pattern very reduced in some species. Male genitalia have elongate gnathos (nearly globose only in altaica Zeller, 1854 and kailai ), valvae incurved at apex, costal margin sometimes with median bulge, sacculus widely crossing the valva with two (rarely three) processes on the posterior edge, the outer reaching close to the costal margin of valva or exceeding it, saccus often elongate, aedeagus slender, long with a single cornutus. Female genitalia with long ductus bursae. Species identification most often rests on the male genitalia, where the shape of the incurved apex of the valva, the length of the saccus and the relative proportions of the various parts provide diagnostic characters, in particular the length of the cornutus relative to the aedeagus and the length of the aedeagus relative to the length of the valva. Those species with known food-plants all feed on Apiaceae .

The presence of an undescribed species of this group in Spain was recognised by Klaus Sattler after he and David Carter collected several specimens in Sierra Nevada in 1969. These have remained unnamed in NHMUK since that date. Further specimens were later collected in the same area and elsewhere in Spain, most of these deposited in ZMUC. It was these that first came to the notice of M. Corley in 2004. Recently the species has been found in additional localities in Spain and in Greece. It is described here as D. albarracinella Corley sp. n.

The specimens from Greece have not been included in the type series. Although there is no reason to doubt the identification, the p-distance of over 1% between the barcodes of Spanish and Greek specimens suggests that caution is not out of place.