Cryphia flavipuncta Mustelin, NEW SPECIES
Creators: name: Mustelin, Tomas
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2006
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Noctuidae
Cryphia
Cryphia flavipuncta

description: Cryphia flavipuncta Mustelin, NEW SPECIES
Figs. 8, 34 a, 34b, and 70
Type material. Holotype: Male, Upper Ojai Valley, 12727 Koenigstein Road, Ventura County, 650 m, 15 October 1999, T. Dimock. Paratypes: 19 males, 10 females. Los Angeles County: Solemint Canyon, 914 m, 18 October 1958 (1 male), 6 November 1961 (1 male), 21 October 1965 (15 males, 8 females), R. Leuschner; La Tuna Canyon, 4 October 1947, C. Henne (1 female); Mint Canyon, 11 October 1941, C. Henne (1 female); South Fork Big Rock Creek, San Gabriel Mountains, 30 September 1965, C. Henne (1 male); Ranch 4 km SSW of Valyermo, 30 September 1964, C. Henne (1 male). Holotype and genitalic slide #227/TM deposited in SDNHM, paratypes in LACM and the private collections of R. Leuschner, T. Dimock, and the author.
Etymology. The name flavipuncta means “with yellow dot” in reference to the pale cream reniform spot, and to contrast this species with its closest relative Cryphia albipuncta (Barnes & McDunnough, 1910), which is darker and has a white reniform spot.
Diagnosis. This species is most similar to Cryphia albipuncta. The forewing is somewhat more pointed (Fig. 8 a) than that of C. albipuncta. The maculation is similar to that of albipuncta, but the ground color is more diffusely olive greenish (fading to brown in collections). The reniform spot is paler than the ground color of the forewing (Fig. 8 b) but not pure white as in C. albipuncta. The hindwing is pale brown; the forewing is dark brown to black with weak black maculation; the reniform spot is white or cream­colored and distinctive. The male has pectinate antennae.
Description. Antenna thinly pectinate in males, filiform in females; eye naked; palpus and frons covered in mixture of black and yellowish hairs; patagium, tegula, and thorax covered in pale yellowish hairlike scales intermixed with a few black hairs; venter concolorous with dorsum; legs concolorous with thorax; abdomen concolorous with thorax; venter slightly paler than dorsum; forewing ground color pale yellowish, heavily overlaid with dark gray, giving an olive greenish impression; maculation weak; orbicular spot inconspicuous, small, round, outlined in black; reniform spot small, vaguely outlined in black, devoid of darker scales inside making it paler than ground color; claviform spot absent; antemedial line black, serrate, bulging outward under cubital vein; postmedial line black, serrate; subterminal line dark, diffuse, faint; terminal line thin, black and only between veins; fringe concolorous with ground color; ventral side smooth pale yellowish gray; darker shadow beyond postmedial line; fringe pale; hindwing pale yellowish gray; diffuse darker gray broad subterminal shade; fringe pale yellow with dark line. Male genitalia (Figs. 34 a and 34b): Juxta round with a lateral winglike projection; sacculus rounded; valve straight, tapering to half as broad at cucullus than at sacculus; medial fingerlike process slender, pointed, slightly curved; aedeagus four to five times longer than broad; everted vesica L­shaped, smooth, diameter twice that of aedeagus, with one basal and one subbasal spine, twice as long as diameter of aedeagus. Female genitalia (Fig. 70): Ovipositor lobes rounded, unsclerotized, with hairs, but no setae; ductus bursae flat, length 1.1–1.2 mm, width 0.6 mm, wrinkled at junction of corpus bursae; corpus bursae oval, bends to left, sclerotized near ductus, rest smooth, no signa.
Distribution and habitat. Cryphia flavipuncta has been collected only in the Transverse Ranges in Ventura and Los Angeles counties in foothill chaparral habitats and in desert­facing canyons in late September–November.
description: Published as part of Mustelin, Tomas, 2006, Taxonomy of southern California Erebidae and Noctuidae (Lepidoptera) with descriptions of twenty one new species, pp. 1-47 in Zootaxa 1278 on pages 18-19, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.273509