Tetracis cervinaria Packard
Creators: name: Ferris, Clifford D.
name: Schmidt, Christian
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2010
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Geometridae
Tetracis
Tetracis cervinaria

description: Tetracis cervinaria (Packard)
(Figs. 7–8, 19–23, 89, 104, 120, 135)
Metanema cervinaria Packard, 1871. Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, 13:386. Holotype ♂, “W. Springs, Cal. Behrens.” [MCZ]. Note: The naturalist James Behrens came to America from Germany in 1853 and settled in San Francisco, California. He collected in the San Francisco Bay Area and around the northern part of the state. Ferris interprets “W. Springs” to be an abbreviation for Warm Springs, Alameda Co, California, and hereby fixes this location as the type locality. The holotype (Fig. 7) is missing its forewings, abdomen, and most of the antennae and legs.
Metanema aurantiacaria Packard. 1873. Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, 16:34. Holotype ♀ “S. Nevada.” [MCZ]. The holotype (Fig. 8) is in good condition except for a missing antenna.
Synaxis cervinaria McDunnough, 1938, page 173, entry 5191.
Diagnosis: The nearly straight DFW PM line, typically fawn color, and early-season flight period (February– June; stragglers to mid-July) separate cervinaria from its congeners except australis. Genitalic characters (male genitalia: length of furca shorter than length of aedeagus, ratio ca. 0.7) and geography (widely distributed in western North American, but not in coastal southern California) separate cervinaria from australis.
Description: Adults (Figs. 7–8, 19–23): FWL: 19–23 mm. Antenna (both sexes) dorsally white, nearly filiform, densely setose ventrally. Head (except frons), thorax, abdomen, basal and outer marginal areas of wings essentially concolorous; frons and terminal segment of palpi darker. Palpi broad, upcurved, slightly longer than width of eye. Abdomen laterally and ventrally sparsely speckled with individual brown scales. Legs whitish overlaid nonuniformly with dark brown scales defining diffuse bands. Wings: DFW apex strongly falcate; males tawny or cinnamon-tan with narrow pale ochre AM and PM lines with or without dark edging, PM line nearly straight, MB frequently darker; females often orange or cinnamon-rufous with welldefined brown or brownish-orange AM and PM lines with usually darker MB. DHW with nearly straight median line duplicating color of PM line, in some examples there is a distal indistinct convex dark satellite line originating from the top to the middle of the median line; small FW and HW discal dots are present. Ventrally the dorsal markings are repeated to some degree depending upon individual specimens; there is also a widely distributed speckling by dark scales. Male genitalia (Figs. 89, 104): Uncus slightly decurved, basally broad tapering to rounded apex. Gnathos typically with 2 or 3 robust upcuved spines projecting from opposite ends of dorso-caudal margin. Robust furca from middle of anellus tapers to rounded apex, length of furca shorter than length of aedeagus, ratio ca. 0.7. Valve broad with even margins, tapering slightly to rounded apex lacking an apical projection. Aedeagus with lightly sclerotized projection at posterior end, but without ring of spinules at base of vesica; everted vesica with well-defined dome; irregularly-shaped setose lightly sclerotized plate at base of vesica; smaller irregularly-shaped slightly setose sclerotized plate and scattered small sclerotized nodules on dome. Female genitalia (Fig. 120): A/P = 0.4. Tubular ductus bursae moderately long, linearly sclerotized; corpus bursae ovoid with rounded fundus, slightly shorter than length of ductus bursae; large oval and strongly dentate signum below junction with ductus bursae.
Material examined: 160 specimens with 30 dissections. Additional material and genitalic preparations examined by digital photographs.
Biology: Mature larva described by McGuffin (1987). Previous literature citations of larval hosts are suspect because localities are generally not provided, so that it is not known to which group II species they pertain. Based on label data from museum specimens reared from wild-caught larvae, two confirmed hosts in northern California for cervinaria are Prunus emarginata (Douglas) D. Dietrich and P. virginiana L. Quercus garryana Dougl. was cited by Jones (1951) in British Columbia. Adults as early as February into June, with female stragglers into mid-July.
Distribution (Fig. 135): British Columbia south to Kern Co., California and eastward to western Montana, SE Idaho, Carbon Co., Wyoming, and Larimer Co., Colorado, from 2600–7800’ (790-2375m). Records by province/state/county are: CANADA: ALBERTA. Waterton Lakes. BRITISH COLUMBIA. Vancouver, Vancouver Is. UNITED STATES: CALIFORNIA. Alameda, Alpine, Amador, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Fresno, Humboldt, Inyo, Kern, Lake,, Madera, Marin, Mariposa, Mendocino, Modoc, Mono, Napa, Placer, Plumas, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Solano, Sonoma, Trinity, Tulare, Tuolumne, Yolo. COLORADO. Garfield, Larimer, Mesa, Rio Blanco. IDAHO. Bannock, Franklin, Washington. MONTANA. Lewis & Clark. NEVADA. Lander, White Pine. OREGON. Benton, Douglas, Harney, Klamath, Union, Wallowa. UTAH. Summit. WASHINGTON. Benton, Island, Pend Oreille, Yakima. WYOMING. Carbon.
description: Published as part of Ferris, Clifford D. & Schmidt, Christian, 2010, Revision of the North American Genera Tetracis Guenée and Synonymization of Synaxis Hulst with Descriptions of Three New Species (Lepidoptera: Geometridae: Ennominae), pp. 1-36 in Zootaxa 2347 on page 12, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.275566