Agonochaetia quartana Povolný, 1990

Landry, Jean-François, Nazari, Vazrick, Bidzilya, Oleksiy, Huemer, Peter & Karsholt, Ole, 2017, Review of the genus Agonochaetia Povolný (Lepidoptera, Gelechiidae), and description of a new genus and species from the Canary Islands, Zootaxa 4300 (4), pp. 451-485 : 468-469

6. Agonochaetia quartana Povolný, 1990

( Figs 7 , 39 )

Agonochaetia quartana Povolný 1990: 150 , figs. 3, 11. Type locality: Slivno , Bulgaria. Povolný (2002a: 105); Huemer & Karsholt (2010: 297).

Material examined. Holotype ♀ [ Bulgaria] “ Slivno, Rebel, Juni 96 ”, “ Mn. 3222”, “ Holotypus det. Povolný, Agonochaetia quartana n. sp., 1990” ( ZSM) (examined by OK).

DNA Barcode BIN. Not barcoded.

Adult ( Fig. 7 ). For a re-description see Huemer & Karsholt (2010: 297).

Male genitalia. Unknown.

Female genitalia ( Fig. 39 ). Segment VIII shorter (0.85x) than wide, weakly sclerotized, sides finely wrinkled; anterior apophysis 1.4x length of segment VIII, widening of base into sternum VIII over about ½ of its length; antrum slenderly triangular, 1.5x length of SVIII, distal edge roundly concave, anterior portion tapered to about ¼ distal width and extended to about three-quarters of anterior apophysis; signum with elongate triangular basal plate with straight sides, hook small and shorter than basal plate.

Diagnosis. The only known specimen of A. quartana has broad, almost unicolorous wings. It is similar to A. terrestrella , but lacks dark spots in the forewings and has the antennae more distinctly ringed. The female antrum is shaped like a very slender triangular funnel with an incompletely melanized anterior half and a broadly concave posterior margin. The basal plate of the signum is shaped like an elongate isosceles triangle and the signum hook is short, about half the length of the basal plate. It differs from A. intermedia in the more slender antrum with straight sides, and from A. terrestrella in the signum with a proportionally more elongate basal plate and shorter distal hook.

Biology. Unknown. The holotype was collected in June.

Distribution ( Fig. 43 ). Known only from the type locality in Bulgaria.

Remarks. A. quartana was described from a single female collected in Bulgaria and no additional material has been found. The type locality was erroneously assigned to the Julian Alps in former Yugoslavia (now Slovenia) by Povolný (1990) but it is in fact situated in Bulgaria. The holotype was collected by Hans Rebel, a famous Austrian lepidopterist and former director of the Natural History Museum in Vienna, during an expedition to Bulgaria in 1896. According to Rebel (1903) all material collected at that time is property of the Natural History Museum in Vienna and not of ZSM as stated by Povolný (1990). It seems likely that the holotype is one of the two specimens published as dark form of Lutilabria lutilabrella (Mann, 1857) [ Gelechia lutilabrella ] ( Rebel 1903). Povolný (1990) distinguished the species solely on the shape of the signum of the holotype, even though the shape of the antrum, which he considered to afford differences among species of Agonochaetia , falls within the individual variation of A. terrestrella . Therefore those two taxa may well prove to be conspecific in the future ( Povolný 2002b; Huemer & Karsholt 2010). See also Remarks under A. terrestrella .

Figures

FIGURES 1 – 12. Adults. 1, A. conspersa ♂ (HT); 2, A. impunctella ♀ (HT); 3, A. incredibilis ♂ (HT); 4, A. intermedia ♂; 5, A. intermedia ♀; 6, A. lvovskyi ♂ (HT); 7, A. quartana ♀ (HT); 8, A. shawinigan ♂ (HT); 9 – 11, A. terrestrella ♀♀; 12, A. tuvella ♂.

FIGURES 37 – 39. Female genitalia of Agonochaetia species. 37, A. impunctella ♀ (HT) (slide 176452 / 4220, K. T. Park 1996); 38, A. intermedia ♀ (slide GU 87 / 107, P. Huemer); 39, A. quartana ♀ (HT) (slide 3222 Povolný),

FIGURES 43 - 44. 43, Map of type localities (red stars) and distribution (red dots) of Agonochaetia and Canarischema (yellow star). 44, Bayesian inference of relationships between selected Gnorimoschemini genera based on COI barcode data. Values above nodes are posterior probabilities; those below nodes are bootstrap values from the Parsimony analysis (values from the Maximum Likelihood analysis were very similar).