Samea castellalis Guenee 1854
Creators: name: Bernard Landry
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2016
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Pyralidae
Samea
Samea castellalis

description: Samea castellalis Guenée, 1854
Figs 53, 54, 125, 171
Samea castellalis Guenée, 1854: 195. ‒ Causton et al., 2006: 141. ‒ Roque-Albelo & Landry, 2015.
Samea ecclesialis Guenée, 1854 (misidentification): Peck et al., 1998: 227.
Material examined: 13 ♂, 29 ♀, 2 of undetermined sex from the Galápagos Islands: – Fernandina: Cabo Douglas, GPS: S 00° 18.269’, W 091° 39.098’. – Isabela: Alcedo, lado NE, low arid zone bosq[ue]. palo santo; 3 km N S[an]to Tómas, Agr[iculture]. Zone; Sierra Negra, 11 km N Puerto Villamil, GPS: S 00° 87.613’, W 91° 00.903’; Sierra Negra, Corazon Verde; NE slope Alcedo, ca. 400 m up (S) Los Guayabillos Camp, GPS: 892 m elev[ation]., S 00°25.208’, W 91°04.765’; Alcedo, lado NE, 1100 m, cumbre, Caseta Cayot. – San Cristóbal: 4 km SE P[uer] to Baquarizo [sic]; 1 km S El Progreso; base of Cerro Pelado; La Toma, ca. 6.5 km east El Progreso, GPS: 299 m elev., S 00° 55.356’, W 89° 31.089’; pampa zone; El Junco, east side, GPS: 654 m elev., S 00° 53.734’, W 89° 28.727’. – Santa Cruz: Horneman Farm, 200 m; Horneman Farm, 220 m elev.; Tortuga Res[erve]. W S[an]ta Rosa; agriculture zone, near (NNW) Bella Vista, GPS: 223 m elev., S 00° 41.297’, W 90° 19.670’; 2 km W Bella Vista; Finca S[teve]. Devine; Los Gemelos; Media Luna, pampa zone. – Santiago: Bahía Espumilla; 200 m elev.; N side, GPS: 437 m elev., S 00° 13.316’, W 090° 43.808’; Aguacate [camp], 520 m elev.; NE side, close to Caseta, GPS: 686 m elev., S 00°14.177’, W 90°44.619’; Central [camp], 700 m elev.; Jaboncillo [camp], ± 850 m elev. Deposited in AMNH, BMNH, CAS, CDRS, CNC, and MHNG.
Diagnosis: This species is very similar to Samea ecclesialis Guenée, 1854 (Fig. 80), but the males are easily separated by the presence of lateral tufts of pale cream, drab, and dark brown scent scales on the abdomen (on segments IV-VII) curving posterodorsally over the tergites in S. castellalis (Fig. 54), as Guenée aptly mentioned, and their absence in S. ecclesialis. One other possible external character is the dark marginal fascia of the hindwing remaining wide until the inner margin in S. ecclesialis (1 specimen, Fig. 80) while this fascia is decreasing in width toward the inner margin in S. castellalis. In the male genitalia of S. ecclesialis (Fig. 137) the dorsal margin of the valva is not angled (angled in S. castellalis, Fig. 125) and the fibula is shorter, stouter, and bifid, with a spoon-shaped medial element and a narrower digit-like element on top of it (simple and pointed in S. castellalis). reliably identified female of S. ecclesialis could not be found to dissect and record the characters that would separate them from those of S. castellalis. Wingspan: 19-23 mm.
Biology: In Florida, U.S.. the larval food plant is Richardia brasiliensis Gomes (Tropical Mexican clover, Rubiaceae) and the moths are often attracted to Multi- Lure® (McPhail-type) traps deployed for tephritid fruit fly detection (Hayden, 2014). other food plant record exists for either S. castellalis and S. ecclesialis in the literature as far as I know. ‘Larvae spin slight webs among leaves and graze the epidermis of either leaf side, forming rounded windows; they spin a white silken shelter among leaves for pupation’ (Hayden, 2014). In the Galápagos specimens have been collected from the littoral zone up to the highest, pampa zone, for example at 1100 m on Alcedo, Isabela, in habitats either unmodified or modified for agriculture from January to April as well as in November and December.
Distribution: Based on specimens examined in the BMNH, this species is widespread in the Neotropical region, in the West Indies (Bahamas, Cuba, Grand Cayman, Jamaica, Trinidad), and on the continents from Mexico through Guatemala and Costa Rica, south to Paraguay, including British Guiana, Venezuela, Colombia, and Brazil. Patterson et al. (2015) reports Samea ecclesialis widely from the eastern US States north to Massachusetts and Iowa, but some of the specimens pictured are males with the dorsoabdominal scent scales of S. castellalis. In the Galápagos this species has been found on several islands: Fernandina, Isabela, San Cristóbal, Santa Cruz, and Santiago.
Remarks: This taxon has been confused and synonymized with S. ecclesialis Guenée (1854: 194- 195, pl. 6 fig. 7), for example by Munroe (1995: 74). I have first mentioned S. castellalis to be a valid species in Causton et al. (2006: 141), but an explanation for its removal from synonymy with S. ecclesialis is presented here for the first time. It is based on the study of the available syntypes and on morphological differences mentioned above in the Diagnosis. The male syntype, without abdominal tufts of scent scales dorsally, and the female syntype of S. ecclesialis from Cayenne, French Guyana are deposited in the BMNH, but the original description recorded several more specimens from Brazil, Colombia and Septentrional America that could not be found in the BMNH. Similarly, the description of S. castellalis recorded several specimens of both sexes from Brazil, Colombia, and Septentrional America that could not be found in the BMNH. Also, there is no evidence for the S. castellalis syntypes in the BMNH based on the annotated copy of Guenée deposited in the BMNH. They are apparently not either in the ‘Muséum national d’histoire naturelle’, Paris based on a catalogue of type photos from this museum that Michael Shaffer showed me in April 2000. Samea disertalis Walker (1866: 1302) is a synonym of S. castellalis as attest external morphology of the male syntype found in the BMNH and here designated lectotype, with the following labels: 1- ‘Hon- | duras’ [on verso], ’45 | 123’ [on recto] [circular, hand written]; 2- ‘Lecto- | type’ [circular, blue bordered, typed]; 3- ‘ LECTOTYPE | Samea | disertalis Walker | Des. B. Landry, 2000’ [rectangular, typed except for species, describer names, and last numbers of year]. The name Samea luccusalis Walker, 1859 is also attributed to the synonymy of S. castellalis because it seems to be the most common species, but the unique type is in the Hope Museum, Oxford, England, and a photo I have examined does not allow to identify the species with certainty.
description: Published as part of Bernard Landry, 2016, Taxonomic revision of the Spilomelinae (Lepidoptera, Pyralidae s. l.) of the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador, pp. 315-399 in Revue suisse de Zoologie 123 (2) on pages 372-373, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.155309