Apamea robertsoni Mikkola and Mustelin, NEW SPECIES
Creators: name: Mustelin, Tomas
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2006
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Noctuidae
Apamea
Apamea robertsoni

description: Apamea robertsoni Mikkola and Mustelin, NEW SPECIES
Figs. 15, 46 a, 46b, and 76
Type material. Holotype: Male, San Luis Obispo Dune Lakes, 5 mi southeast of Oceano, San Luis Obispo County, 30 May 1992, R. Robertson. Paratypes: 2 males, 3 females. San Luis Obispo County: Same locality as holotype, 2 May 1992 (1 female), 30 May 1992 (2 males, 3 females). Holotype and two paratypes deposited in CNC, paratypes in the collection of R. Robertson.
Etymology. This species is named in honor of Ron Robertson, who collected the type series and who has contributed significantly to museum collections of Noctuidae, particularly that of the University of California, Davis.
Diagnosis. This is a distinctive, large, purplish gray species with weak but visible maculation similar to that of Apamea maxima (Dyar, 1904), but the claviform does not reach the postmedial line (Fig. 14 a) and the marginal field is uniformly dark, not striped as in A. maxima.
Description. Male antenna as in A. maxima, slightly dentate, bifasciculate, that of female filiform. Last segment of labial palpus ca. 4 times as long as wide, covered by pale scales, laterally, and by dark scales as well as by hairlike scales. Eye laterally lined by cilia. Collar with blackish horizontal line, thorax gray brown with weak longitudinal lines, three first abdominal segments tufted, male anal tuft concolorous with abdomen. Forewing grayish brown to brown­gray, with purple shine, with full but weakly contrasting maculation. Basal dash black, anteriorly lined by gray scales, basal line visible only as darker spots at costa, antemedial line obscure or double, filled by gray scales, deeply incised at orbicular stigma which is horizontally oval. Reniform medially and laterally concave, filled with yellowish brown scales dispersed laterally to postmedial line, creating paler dash. Median area browner than basal and subterminal areas, postmedial line obscure or conspicuously filled by gray scales, darker crescent visible at claviform, latter not reaching postmedial line. Submarginal line medially pale with deep W mark, marginal area uniformly dark. Marginal line thin, black, interrupted at veins where dark fringe shows luteous spots. Hind wing pale with strong suffusion of dark scales, particularly marginally, leaving weak pale postmedial line visible, vein cu2 with three branches conspicuously darker than rest of wing, fringe whitish with darker areas at veins. Ventral surface of forewing medially dark but medially with paler dash, marginally with dark vein stripes. Hindwing underside pale grayish with sharp, small central spot, marginally weakly suffused by dark scales. Male genitalia (Figs. 46 a and 46b): Uncus thin; juxta shieldlike with relatively broad lateral appendages; sacculus stout; valve long and slender with angle on outer margin; cucullus broad and oval, dorsally biased; digitus long and curved; aedeagus rounded and straight; everted vesica with long left diverticulum, no cornuti, distally vesica longitudinal pouch which points to left. Female genitalia (Fig. 76): Ovipositor lobes robust and drawn to beaklike point, broader than in A. digitula, heavily sclerotized; posterior apophyses 1.5 mm long, anterior apophyses 1.0 mm long; ductus bursae 2 mm long, 1 mm wide, heavily sclerotized, straight, corpus bursae 5 mm long, 1 mm wide, narrowest in middle, fundus oval, signa absent; appendix bursae arises from right posterior corpus bursae.
Distribution and habitat. Apamea robertsoni has been collected only during the month of May on the outer coastal dunes of the type locality.
description: Published as part of Mustelin, Tomas, 2006, Taxonomy of southern California Erebidae and Noctuidae (Lepidoptera) with descriptions of twenty one new species, pp. 1-47 in Zootaxa 1278 on pages 30-31, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.273509