Ethmia elutella Busck

Phillips-Rodriguez, Eugenie, Powell, Jerry A., Hallwachs, Winnie & Janzen, Daniel H., 2014, A synopsis of the genus Ethmia Huebner in Costa Rica: biology, distribution, and description of 22 new species (Lepidoptera, Gelechioidea, Depressariidae, Ethmiinae), with emphasis on the 42 species known from Area de Conservacion Guanacaste, ZooKeys 461, pp. 1-86 : 11-12

Taxon classification Animalia Lepidoptera Depressariidae

Ethmia elutella Busck Figures 9, 54, 99, 151

Ethmia elutella Busck, 1914: 35; Powell 1973: 133.

Diagnosis.

Ethmia elutella is most similar to Ethmia janzeni , and can be distinguished by its dark gray HW costal hair pencil, which is ochreous in Ethmia janzeni .

Description.

Male: FW length 7.2-7.8 mm (n = 3). Head: Front brownish, crown whitish. Thorax: Collar and tegula white, notum bluish, lateral white. FW costal half grayish, the dorsal area with a large purplish blotch concolorous with termen. HW costal pinch-fold present; dark gray hair pencil present. Abdomen: Brownish, genital scaling whitish. Genitalia (Fig. 54) with uncus broad hood like, gnathos dentate, basal process broad, valva with small notch distally and apical and subapical small spines.

Female: FW length 7.9-8.2 mm (n = 3). Head and thorax: As described for male, HW unmodified. Abdomen: Genitalia (Fig. 99) with sterigma a narrow band; ostium enclosed by an assymetrically bilobed fig; signum a fold with dentate margin.

Holotype.

Female: Panamá, Porto Bello, March 1911, A. Busck [USNM, examined].

Distribution and biology.

Ethmia elutella has been reported from Panamá (Barro Colorado Island) to Venezuela (Rancho Grande, Aragua) and Trinidad ( Powell 1973). In Costa Rica (Fig. 151) has been collected from 25 to 650 m in both slopes of the Cordillera Volcánica de Guanacaste, lowlands of Sarapiquí and lowlands of Central Pacific Costa Rica. It has been found in the dry forest of ACG. The food plant and immature stages are unknown.