Oncocnemis kelsoensis Robertson and Mustelin, NEW SPECIES
Creators: name: Mustelin, Tomas
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2006
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Noctuidae
Oncocnemis
Oncocnemis kelsoensis

description: Oncocnemis kelsoensis Robertson and Mustelin, NEW SPECIES
Figs. 6, 31 a, 31b, and 68
Type material. Holotype: Male, Kelso dunes, San Bernardino County, California, 30 March 1989, R. Robertson. Paratypes: 34 males, 6 females. San Bernardino County: Same locality and collector as holotype, 31 March 1986, 2 April 1988, and 30 March 1989. Holotype and genitalic slide #266/TM deposited in SDNHM, paratypes in USNM, CNC, CAS, UCB, and the private collections of R. Robertson and the author.
Etymology. The specific name refers to the Kelso dunes.
Diagnosis. Oncocnemis kelsoensis is a white, longitudinally gray­striped species known only from the Kelso dunes in the Mojave Desert. It can be distinguished from its congeners by the forewing pattern.
Description. Antenna filiform in both sexes; palpus covered with white scales, intermixed with some black scales; eye naked; frons covered with white hairs and two transverse dark bands; prothoracic collar covered with white scales and one black transverse line at base; thorax covered with white hairlike scales and a few black scales along tegula; venter covered with white hair; area behind eye darker; legs covered with pale gray hairs; abdomen covered with white; venter white; forewing ground color white; long thin black basal dash; veins dark; orbicular and claviform spots absent; reniform spot present as clearing of darker dusting; antemedial, postmedial, and subterminal lines absent; dark dusty streaks between veins; fringe checked white and black; ventral side white. Hindwing white; veins dark; terminal line dark; fringe white; ventral side white; discal spot absent. Male genitalia (Figs. 31 a and 31b): Valve length 2.7 mm, width at middle 0.65 mm, straight and evenly broad, cucullus rounded; clasper length 0.45 mm, basally 0.4 mm, claw­shaped, sharp point; aedeagus length 2.3 mm, width 0.8 mm, tapering to 0.6 mm, slightly bent; everted vesica length approximately 4 mm, width 1.0 mm tapering to 0.8 mm, curved to right; 3 longitudinal patches of 0.2–0.3 mm spines. Female genitalia (Fig. 68): Ovipositor lobe rectangular, 0.55 x 0.35 mm, a row of stout spines pointing anteriorly and with ringlike bases; posterior apophyses 3.9 mm long; anterior apophyses 2.0 mm long; ductus bursae 2.0 mm long and 0.3 mm wide at narrowest constriction, weakly sclerotized, slowly widens before junction with corpus bursae; corpus bursae 2.6 x 1.35 mm, oval, slightly pointed, with longitudinal stripes; appendix bursae large, 1.5 x 1.2 mm, round, and with small appendix near ostium bursae.
Distribution and habitat. Oncocnemis kelsoensis has been collected only in late March and April in the Kelso dunes in the middle of the Mojave Desert of San Bernardino County.
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 14-15, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.273509