Gymnosophistis Meyrick 1934
Creators: name: Bartsch, Daniel
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2018
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Sesiidae
Gymnosophistis

description: Gymnosophistis Meyrick, 1934
Type species: Gymnosophistis thyrsodoxa Meyrick, 1934: 454, by monotypy.
References: Naumann 1971: 17; Fletcher & Nye 1982: 72; Heppner & Duckworth 1981: 43; Pühringer & Kallies 2004: 44.
Redescription. Alar expanse 20–25 mm.
Head: haustellum well developed; labial palpus strongly upturned, covering frons, tip between bases of antennae, second palpomere somewhat longer than first and third; dorsally smooth scaled, ventrally rough, somewhat appressed, laterally protruding; width of frons about twice the diameter of an eye; scales of frons and vertex long, hair-like; pericephalic scales dorsally long, hair-like, laterally short; antennae strikingly short, about half as long as forewing, strongly clavate, flagellum proximally somewhat serrate, ciliate, with proximal ciliae longest, club without ciliae.
Thorax: strong, densely covered with hair-like scales. Legs strong; mid- and hind tibia as well as first tarsomere of hind leg tufted with rough long, hair-like scales; all spur pairs with lateral spurs somewhat less than half as long as mesal ones. Wings: largely transparent; apical area absent; margins very narrow, except for broad costal margin; discal spot of forewing extremely narrow; discal spot of hind wing absent; venation in forewing with R1 to R3 closely approximated, R4 and R5 stalked to more than half length; all veins from stalk of R4/R5 to M3 arise almost equally spaced from cross vein; CuA1 and CuA2 coincident; hindwing venation typical of Sesiini with veins M3 and CuA1 stalked.
Abdomen: rather short and broad, spindle-shaped, first tergites densely, other tergites scarcely covered with hair-like scales, anal tuft well developed.
Females unknown.
Male genitalia. (Figs. 7–8). Tegumen broad; gnathos small, slightly asymmetric, distally pointed; uncus narrow, ventro-lateral margins densely covered with long, hair- to bristle-like, proximad pointing setae, dorsally seamlessly fused, ventrally connected to tegumen by a membrane; valva broad, ovoid to rectangular, without crista sacculi or other raised structures, dorso-medially and distally densely covered with proximad pointing, bristle-like, apically mostly bifurcate setae; juxta narrow, posteriorly wide protruding; vinculum forming a short to moderately long saccus; phallus long and slender, almost straight, longer than valva; coecum penis present, short, slightly curved, proximally rounded; vesica basally with numerous teeth or thorns.
Diagnosis. Medium sized, powerfully built clearwing moths. The fusion of forewing veins CuA1 and CuA2 is here considered a synapomorphy of the genus; it is unique within the Sesiinae. Antennae extraordinarily short, that of the male clavate, ciliate, rather than pectinate or simple as in most other African Sesiini. Alonina Walker, 1856 is most probably the sister group of Gymnosophistis. Both genera have a functional haustellum; very similar shape and covering with scales of the labial palpus; coverage of large parts of the body and legs with hair-like scales; in the male genitalia similar shape of tegumen, uncus, valva, juxta and phallus. Most importantly, both genera display a very similar bristle-like shape and proximad pointing arrangement of setae of the uncus and dense, bristle-like, medially and distally located proximad pointing, setae of the valva. Both genera also have clavate and ciliate antennae; however, they are distinctly longer and narrower in Alonina. Another clear difference of the two genera, beside the fused forewing veins, is the shape of the gnathos, which is symmetric in all species of Alonina, with two short, down curved hooks (asymmetric, a single distally slightly pointed protrusion in Gymnosophistis). Superficially similar species of Felderiola and Monopetalotaxis differ by the lack of a functional haustellum, males moreover by the simple, thorn-like setae of the valva.
Heppner & Duckworth (1981) list Gymnosophistis under “genera unassigned to subfamily”; Pühringer & Kallies (2004) placed it in “ Sesiinae genera unassigned to tribe”. It is here placed in Sesiini.
Distribution. So far only known from Kenya, East Africa.
Biology and host plant(s) are unknown.
description: Published as part of Bartsch, Daniel, 2018, Revision of Gymnosophistis Meyrick, 1934 (Lepidoptera: Sesiidae) from East Africa with description of a new species, pp. 145-150 in Zootaxa 4532 (1) on pages 146-148, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4532.1.10, http://zenodo.org/record/2615005