Carmenta wildishorum Taft & Cognato 2017, new species
Creators: name: Taft, William H.
name: Cognato, Anthony I.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2017
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Sesiidae
Carmenta
Carmenta wildishorum

description: Carmenta wildishorum Taft & Cognato, new species
(Figs. 3–5)
Diagnosis. Carmenta wildishorum superficially resembles several other species of Carmenta, most notably C. englehardti from southeastern Arizona and C. tildeni (Eichlin 1995) from south Texas and Mexico. However, C.
wildishorum has a frons that is light grey with white laterally, whereas C. engelhardti and C. tildeni have a dark frons, gray-black and brown black, respectively.
Description. Male (Figs. 4 & 5). Head: Vertex primarily flat black; frons light translucent grey, white laterally; occipital fringe pale white; labial palpus slightly roughened, pale white with brown black scales mixed laterally and apically; haustellum coiled, longer than labial palpus; antenna brown black with pearl translucent scales on scape in fresh specimens. Thorax: Dorsum brown-black with narrow, subdorsal pale cream colored stripe of elongated scales. White scales on the posterior margin of metathorax. Long fine pale yellow hair tufts mixed with a few brown hairs emanating from wing bases with yellow scaling beneath wing. Legs with coxa primarily pale white often mixed with areas of blue-gray scales, femur blue-grey; tibia blue-grey with small patches of pale white including tibial spurs, tarsus blue-gray with pale white at joints. Forewing mostly hyaline with outer margin and discal spot brown black. Brown black on outer margin between veins and a very slight edging of dark orange scales on distal margin on discal spot. Hindwing hyaline with narrow margins; dark brown fringe transitioning to pale white near wing base. Abdomen: Brown black with pale cream colored bands on segments 2, 4, 6 and 7, which may have narrow pale cream colored scales on the posterior margins on segments 3 and 5, widest on 4 which encircles the abdomen; lateral pale cream marks on segment 1; ventrally pale white scales on all segments, especially on segments 4–7; anal tuft brown black with tipped with yellow-orange laterally. Genitalia with crista succuli ½ length of valve (Fig. 6) and very similar to Carmenta texana illustrated in Eichlin & Duckworth (1988). Female. Unknown.
Host. Unknown.
Distribution. Specimens collected only in the Cimarron Mountain Range of New Mexico.
Types. Holotype: Male, New Mexico: Colfax Co., Ute Park, 14 July 2016, Coll. William H. Taft along NM-64, deposited in Albert J. Cook Arthropod Research Collection, Michigan State University, East Lansing (MSU). Paratypes (8 males): Same collection data as holotype, 2 males each at Gillete Museum in Fort Collins, Colorado; McGuire Center for Lepidoptera Research at Gainesville, Florida; U.S. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; and MSU.
Eytmology. The species is named after the Wildish family clan of artists, engineers, scientists, soldiers, and teachers, originality from Wisconsin.
Remarks. The habitat is characterized as within the riparian corridor adjacent to the Cimarron River along the NM-64 right of way. Common tree species were Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), Gambel oak (Quercus gambelii), and several Salix and Populus species. Apache plume (Fallugia paradoxa) stands were also present. The EPA ecoregion designation for this geographic area is the southern Rocky Mountains (Omernik 1987) with the mid-elevation forests and the foothills woodlands and shrub lands designation (Griffith et al. 2006, McNab & Avers 1994).
description: Published as part of Taft, William H. & Cognato, Anthony I., 2017, Recognition of a new species of Carmenta from New Mexico supported by morphology and mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I data (Lepidoptera: Sesiidae: Sesiinae: Synanthedonini) in Zootaxa 4337 (3), DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4337.3.8, http://zenodo.org/record/1025046