Chrysoesthia Hübner

Bidzilya, Oleksiy V. & Budashkin, Yury I., 2015, New species of Gelechiidae (Lepidoptera) from Ukraine, Zootaxa 3974 (2), pp. 217-230 : 217-218

Chrysoesthia Hübner , [1825]

Type-species: [ Tinea ] zinckenella Hübner, [1813]; by subsequent designation.

Chrysoesthia shares with the closely related Metanarsia Staudinger, 1871 a phallus consisting of a strongly sclerotized base in combination with a lateral longitudinal band and a membranous vesica in the male genitalia. The female genitalia of both genera are characterized by a weakly modified, evenly sclerotized segment VIII with a narrow band-shaped sternite and usually a reduced signum. These characters states separate Chrysoesthia and Metanarsia from Catatinagma Rebel, 1903 , Proactica Walsingham, 1904, and other more distantly related genera of the subfamily Anomologinae. Chrysoesthia is difficult to separate from Metanarsia . However, in Chrysoesthia the sacculus tends to be densely covered with short setae on the posterior margin, the tegumen has a fish-scale like pattern on the base, both pairs of apophyses are very short, and there are well-developed, rounded plates on the base of the setae on the ventral margin of papilla anales. These characters states may be autapomorphies of the genus.

At least 17 species of Chrysoesthia are known from the Palaearctic region ( Kuroko 1961, Elsner et al. 1999, Bidzilya 2001, 2005, Beccaloni et al. 2005, Omelko & Omelko 2010); four species from the Afrotropical region ( Vári 1963, Vári et al. 2002); two species from the Nearctic region ( Lee et al. 2009); and two species from the Holarctic region. In the Palaearctic most species occur in the Mediterranean subregion. Larvae are endophagous, usually producing mines on Amaranthaceae , Caryophyllaceae , Chenopodiaceae , and Polygonaceae .