Coelopoeta fissurina Kaila 2024, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Kaila, Lauri
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Pterolonchidae
Coelopoeta
Coelopoeta fissurina

description: Coelopoeta fissurina Kaila, sp. nov.
Figs. 27, 37
Holotype ♂: U.S.A., Arizona, 31.93°N, 109.20°W, Cochise Co., Chiricahua Mts., Portal–Paradise cyn. road, 2 mi. N. Portal, 1300 m, grass/ Opuntia, 24.iv.1996, ad luc. L. Kaila & J. Kullberg leg. L. Kaila prep. 6372; Database # MZH-LEO 00000294; Coelopoeta sp. det. J.-F. Landry 2016; DNA-voucher FinBOL 2019; http://id.luomus. fi/KZ7707 (MZH).
Diagnosis. C. fissurina is a mottled pale grey species, with forewing colour formed of white and grey scales. The male genitalia are characterized by the bilobed uncus lobes and the basally inflated phallus. With these genital characters it is readily distinguished from all other Coelopoeta apart from C. valalbui. These species are distinguished from each other by the shorter valva with a distally blunt apex in C. fissurina. The uncus of C. fissurina far exceeds the length of the valva in ventral view (Fig. 37). The female is unknown.
Description. Forewing length 5 mm. Labial palpus porrect, length 2/3 of diameter of head, brownish grey. Head, neck tuft, tegula, thorax, scape and pecten of antenna white. Flagellum unicolourous grey, not serrate. Legs grey. Forewing ground colour formed of unicolourous, white and pale brownish grey scales, hindwing grey with concolorous fringe. Underside of wings grey with concolorous fringe apart from forewing costa where fringe is white.
Male genitalia. Uncus bilobed, lobes horn-shaped, bent inward, tapered towards curved and acute apex, as long as tegumen. Gnathos 3/4 as long as uncus, tapered in distal third to pointed apex. Tegumen triangular-shaped in lateral view, twice as long as high at its highest point; height half of width of valva in lateral view. Valva as wide as long when measured in the middle where valva is broadest, forming swelling; weakly bent inwards in distal half. Termen somewhat produced in costal part, blunt; sacculus apically separated into small, sharp-tipped lobe. Juxta distally markedly concave, laterally tapered into hook, tapered to convex anterior margin. Saccus slightly bent dorsad, evenly tapered to pointed apex, as long as its width basally. Phallus twice as long as valva, gradually widened from apex to basal 3/4; followed by abrupt narrowing and then dilating in a rounded basal part with basal opening ventrally directed; vesica with two groups of scobinations: one in the middle of phallus, another near apex; apex without carina or teeth.
Female unknown.
Biology. The habitat is rocky submontane prairie-like habitat with low vegetation and dense stands of Opuntia, at altitude 1300 m.
Distribution. Known only from the type locality in the Chiricahua Mountains in SE Arizona.
description: Published as part of Kaila, Lauri, 2024, A review of Coelopoetinae (Lepidoptera, Gelechioidea, Pterolonchidae), a moth subfamily confined to western North America, with descriptions of seven new species, pp. 361-384 in Zootaxa 5458 (3) on page 379, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5458.3.3, http://zenodo.org/record/11547498