Zambezia diredaouaensis Lehmann, Zahiri & Husemann 2023, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Lehmann, Ingo
name: Zahiri, Reza
name: Husemann, Martin
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Metarbelidae
Zambezia
Zambezia diredaouaensis

description: Zambezia diredaouaensis Lehmann, Zahiri & Husemann sp. nov.   
Figs 2c, 9d, 14f  
urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: 0E5B98AB-034A-4760-ABB2-5FECFA508EBE  
Type locality and repository: Ethiopia, the National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi (NMK).  
 Material examined. Holotype male, Ethiopia, Dire Daua (formerly also known as Dire Daoua, now Dire Dawa, chartered city of Dire Dawa), February 1964, R. Hill leg., genitalia slide number 05/052015 I. Lehmann (NMK).   
 Description. Male. Head: Honey-yellow, shiny; long hair-like scales between eyes; eyes brown with small black spots; antenna unusually long, 0.57× length of forewing, bipectinate, with branches 5× width of shaft, branches and shaft covered with cream-coloured scales dorsally; antennal tips with long scales, bending towards apex; labial palpi honey yellow.   
 Thorax: Patagia and tegulae shiny, long, hair-like scales of honey yellow mixed with ochre and cream. A small crest of cream scales on metathorax. Hindlegs yellow ochre with fine, shiny, hair-like scales; a pair of narrow tibial spurs of unequal length, outer spur 1.1 mm, inner spur 0.9 mm. Forewing length 16.0 mm (wingspan 35.0 mm). Forewing upperside pale ochre, not glossy, with very broad, white patch below CuA 2, extending from base of CuA 2 to dorsum, broadest at dorsum, covering one-third the width between base of wing and CuA 2, narrowly edged sepia above; costal white patch from base of wing to half its length honey yellow, lacking striae; a few striae parallel to termen, or representing very faint subterminal and postmedial lines; veins not distinctly coloured; cilia very long, 2.1 mm, shiny pale cream; lunules faint or absent along termen. Underside of forewing rough-scaled, cream, without striae, glossy; costal margin darker, honey-yellow mixed with sepia. Hindwing upperside and cilia glossy pale cream, cilia 2.1 mm long. Underside as in forewing.   
 Abdomen: Honey yellow mixed with cream, glossy; abdominal tuft less than one-third abdominal length. Genitalia (Fig. 14f) with uncus nearly rectangular, outer edge slightly C-shaped, inner edge rounded at base, lobes densely covered with short setae ventrally, basal edge of uncus with a crescent-shaped bend; gnathos arms slightly longer than width of valva, not touching coastal margin of valva, bent towards uncus, hand-like ends connected posteriorly with a thin membrane, not sclerotized; valva broadly ovoid, costa oblique, a broad transverse semi-transtilla with many setae; sacculus with long setae near base of thorn-like process; weakly-sclerotized projection with short setae and a broad rectangular tip, equal in length to single narrow and very short thorn-like process below extending not beyond upper edge of weakly-sclerotized projection; thorn-like process slightly curved upward, hollow, with an acuminate tip and no dots with tiny setae, base very broad, 2× as wide as weakly-sclerotized projection above, and without a second thorn-like process; median sector of valva with few scattered short setae on inner side; a short, broad, ovoid emargination extending between weakly-sclerotized projection and thorn-like process, ca. 30% of length of valva; ventral side of valva slightly bent at middle. Saccus smaller than juxta and triangular shaped with a rounded tip; vinculum very broad, opposite the saccus with plate-like structure that four times larger than saccus. Juxta broad with two acuminate tips, emargination between tips very deep, 90% length of juxta. Phallus 1.2× length of valva, not trumpet-like, strongly bent near middle, bilobed with a cleft at each end.   
 Female. Unknown.   
 Diagnosis. The genitalia of Zambezia diredaouaensis are largest of any in the genus. Based on the shape of the uncus, Zambezia diredaouaensis is related to L. obliqualinea. However, other features, e.g., the large wing size and pattern elements (i.e., the large white patch below CuA 2 in the forewing), suggest a closer relationship to L. rajaeii. A large white patch below CuA 2 also occurs in L. stueningi. Of taxonomic relevance are not characters of any wing “pattern”, but characters of the male genitalia shared with Z. jennyhuntae and Z. madambae: (i) an extremely short sclerotized thorn-like process with a truncate tip; (ii) a very broad base of this process that covers half the valva (volcano- shaped); (iii) a short weakly-sclerotized projection not extending beyond the thorn-like process.   
 Characters shared with Metarbelodes umtaliana, Z. jennyhuntae and Z. madambae include the following: (i) dorsally an open slit at the base of the thorn-like process where it is connected by a narrow membrane to the weaklysclerotized projection; and sacculus very narrow or absent. Three characters separate Z. diredaouaensis from the latter two species: (i) the fold of the CuP vein in the forewing is weak and not continuous; (ii) the basal edge of the sclerotized thorn-like process is 2× as broad as the weakly-sclerotized projection above; and (iii) the vinculum appears very broad opposite the saccus since it is four times larger than the saccus.   
 Distribution. Zambezia diredaouaensis is recorded only from Dire Dawa (Ethiopia) (elevation 1,119 –1,325 m), which is located ca. 41 km northwest of Harar and on the escarpment zone north and below of the ca. 1,500 m rim of the Harar Plateau that extends from the Chercher Mountains southeast of the Awash Plain to the area of Hargeysa in the West (Braukämper 1983). The area belongs to the Afromontane archipelago-like regional centre of endemism. Zambezia diredaouaensis is considered an Afromontane near-endemic species.   
 Habitat. See Appendix 1.   
 Etymology. The new species is named after Dire Daoua (now called Dire Dawa, Ethiopia).
description: Published as part of Lehmann, Ingo, Zahiri, Reza & Husemann, Martin, 2023, Revision of the Metarbelodes Strand, 1909 genus-group (Lepidoptera: Cossoidea: Metarbelidae) with descriptions of two new genera and 33 new species from high elevations of eastern and southern Africa, pp. 1-106 in Zootaxa 5267 (1) on pages 57-58, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5267.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/7840783