Bactrianoscythris, D’Entrèves, Pietro Passerin & Roggero, Angela, 2009

D’Entrèves, Pietro Passerin & Roggero, Angela, 2009, Eastern Palaearctic Scythrididae (Lepidoptera: Gelechioidea): description of a new genus and some new species, Zootaxa 2263, pp. 1-20 : 3

Bactrianoscythris gen. nov.

Type species: Butalis satyrella Staudinger, 1880

Description. Medium to large size (16-20 mm); in the three species for which both the sexes are known ( B. satyrella Staudinger , B. annae sp. nov. and B. afghana sp. nov.), male and female are of similar size. Species are characterized by cryptic external coloration. Head, thorax, abdomen and legs pale brown. Forewing brown or pale brown, with a lighter, longitudinal and irregular line. Hindwing very pale brown or whitish brown, glossy and translucent. Females darker than males.

Male genitalia. Uncus short (except in B. ginevrae sp. nov.), and gnathos asymmetrical, with the joining arms fused and leaf-like shaped; tegumen triangular; phallus very long, bisinuate; valvae symmetrical or only slightly asymmetrical, inwardly curved, slender (except in B. ginevrae sp. nov. and B. pamirica Passerin & Roggero ); vinculum long and narrow; S8 well-developed, thick, elongate, more or less narrowed in middle, always bifid at apex; T8 rectangular and membranous.

Female genitalia. Lamella antevaginalis oval, differently proportioned in each species, lamella postvaginalis with transverse thickening distally. Ductus bursae wrinckled, sometimes sclerotized. Segment VII and VI with a sclerotized, incomplete ring.

Diagnosis. External features can be used to recognize membership in the new genus, since all the species are characterized by large wingspan, forewings surface usually grayish brown of pale brown, with a longitudinal, irregular and thick line, more or less evident and variously colored, that is very reduced only in B. annae . Intraspecific variation of external features seems negligible, although females are slightly darker than males. Although members of Bactrianoscythris gen. nov. are easily identified on the basis of the external features and some genitalic characters (as the asymmetrical and leaf-like gnathos, the S8 very sclerotized and well-developed, the phallus often bisinuate and longer than valvae), specific identification requires a careful examination of genitalia, characterized by very distinct features in both sexes of all the species. The species can be separated among themselves on the basis of the peculiar genitalic shape, and the most reliable characters are in the male valvae (Table 2).

Etymology. The genus is named after the ancient Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (250–125 BCE), which covered northern Afghanistan and part of central Asia; today bactrian is used to indicate the whole of northern Afghanistan. Bactrianoscythris satyrella was the first species collected by Staudinger (1880) and Christoph (1885), so it is selected as the type species. Bactrianoscythris shows an endemic distribution in the region from the Caspian Sea to northeastern Afghanistan (Hindu Kush and Pamir Range), extending southward only in the Palaearctic portion of Afghanistan.

Remarks. Bactrianoscythris , as defined above, includes two species previously described as Scythris ( satyrella and pamirica ) and five new species, all reported from eastern Palaearctic Region, and characterized by an Irano-turanian distribution.

The type material of B. satyrella Staudinger is from Iran and Turkmenistan ( Passerin d’Entrèves & Roggero 2007a), but the species was reported also from Turkey and Sarepta, Russia ( Bengtsson 1997); at present, we restrict the distribution of this species to central Asia until the identification of other specimens is verified. All the other species of Bactrianoscythris were collected in northeastern Afghanistan, in the socalled Turkestanian Province (Takhtajan 1986), that is close to the Armeno-iranian Province in the West and to the Central-asiatic and Northwestern Himalayan Provinces in the East. The Turkestanian Province includes the greater part of mountains of the Irano-turanian Region, and is characterized by desert (ephemeral) vegetation on foothills and low mountains, and by deciduous shrubs on mountain slopes. Steppes cover large areas of the mountains also while high mountain vegetation consists of meadows, steppe and cushionlike subshrubs (Takhtajan 1986).