Calamotropha obliterans
Creators: name: Léger, Théo
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Crambidae
Calamotropha
Calamotropha obliterans

description: Calamotropha obliterans (Walker, 1863)
Figs. 41, 103, 161.
Crambus obliterans Walker, 1863: 169, 170. Type locality: [Malaysia] Sarawak, Borneo.
= Crambus candidifer Walker, 1863: 170, 171
= Crambus candifer Hampson, 1896c: 934
= Crambus condidifer Błeszyński & Colling, 1962: 223
= obliteranus (Hua, 2005: 52) (Crambus)
Calamotropha obliterans Błeszyński, 1961, pp. 168, 169; pl. 24, fig. 20; pl. 47, fig. 111; pl. 66, fig. 204
MATERIAL
4 ♂, 1 unsexed (detailed information in Table S1; https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.b8gtht7mh).
SIMILAR SPECIES
Calamotropha formosella Błeszyński, 1961, C. okanoi Błeszyński, 1961.
DIAGNOSIS
Calamotropha obliterans can be separated from other Calamotropha species by the following characters of the forewing: ground color cream, costa dark brown, median line on costal half evenly arched outwardly, forming a dot at midlength, then fading towards dorsum; median discoidal marked spot; subterminal line arched outwards near costa, cream, basally thinly edged with dark brown. Błeszyński (1961) states that the habitus of C. obliterans resembles that of C. formosella and C. okanoi. The genitalia enable unambiguous separation from these two species. In the male (Fig. 103), the valva apex is broadly notched ventrally (notch smaller in C. okanoi), the valva apex is pointed (rounded in C. formosella), and the vesica bears one medium and small cornuti (no cornuti in C. formosella, one single cornutus in C. okanoi). In female genitalia, the ventral, evenly curved plate of the antrum separates this species from other Calamotropha species.
REDESCRIPTION OF FEMALE GENITALIA (FIG. 161)
Posterior apophyses ca 5/4 of length of tergite VIII length, medially larger. Anterior apophyses ca 1.5 X tergite VIII length, narrowed on distal half. Antrum forming ventral evenly curved plate. Ductus bursae ca 1/4 of corpus length, straight. Corpus bursae not well demarcated from ductus bursae, elongate, membranous, devoid of signum.
DISTRIBUTION
MALAYSIA: Sabah, Sarawak; PHILIPPINES: Leyte, Luzon, Palawan, Samar. Collected at altitudes between 50 and 500 m.
DNA BARCODING
The species delimitation analysis recovered four different MOTUs within C. obliterans for the specimens from Leyte, Luzon (Zambales), Palawan, and Samar (one MOTU each). A maximum intraspecific p-distance of 6.7% is found between samples MFNLEP-PYRALPHIL09-C08 from Luzon (Zambales) and MFNLEP-PYRALPHIL09-A08 from Palawan.
REMARKS
The species was described from a female from Sarawak by Walker. Błeszyński could not locate any male specimen from Borneo in the collections he visited (Błeszyński, 1961), so he investigated a male specimen from Palawan. He states that this male “seems to be conspecific with Calamotropha obliterans (Walk.) ”. The unique female investigated here does not match the drawing by Błeszyński (1961). The original slide is a poor-quality dissection where the corpus bursae and part of the ductus have presumably been lost.
description: Published as part of Léger, Théo, 2024, Half of the Diversity Undescribed: Integrative Taxonomy Reveals 32 New Species and a High Cryptic Diversity in the Scopariinae and Crambinae of the Philippines (Lepidoptera: Crambidae), pp. 1-93 in Bulletin of the Society of Systematic Biologists 3 (2) on pages 57-58, DOI: 10.18061/bssb.v3i2.9527, http://zenodo.org/record/15116964