A new species Ethmia turkmeniella sp. n. (Lepidoptera, Ethmiidae) from Turkmenistan

V. V. Dubatolov*) & P. Ya. Ustjuzhanin**)

*) Siberian Zoological Museum, Institute of Animal Systematics and Ecology, Frunze street, 11, RU-Novosibirsk, 630091, Russia
**) Correspondence address: p/o box 169, Novosibirsk, 630056, Russia

Summary. A new species Ethmia turkmeniella sp. n. (Ethmiidae), is described from Turkmenistan. It belongs to the E. distigmatella (Erschoff, 1874) species group and differs from the most related species, E. quadrinotella (Mann, 1861), by strong differences in the gnathos structure.

Key words: Ethmiidae, Ethmia turkmeniella sp. n., species.

During identification of Lepidoptera materials collected by V. V. Dubatolov on the Kuhitang Mountains (south-eastern Turkmenistan) a new species of the genus Ethmia Hubner, [1819], was found: it belongs to the E. distigmatella (Erschoff, 1874) species group. A specimen of the same species was sent by A. L. Devjatkin for determination to P. Ya. Ustjuzhanin. It was collected on the West Kopetdagh Mountains. A description of the new species is given below.

Ethmia turkmeniella sp. n.

Materials. Holotype - male. SW Turkmenistan, SW Kopet-Dagh Mts., Kara-Kala, 22.VI.1985, leg. A. L. Devjatkin, coll. Siberian Zoological Museum of the Institute of Animal Systematics and Ecology (formerly Zoological Museum of the Biological Institute), Novosibirsk. Paratypes. 1 male, SE Turkmenistan, Kuhitang Mts., 12 km N of Charshanga, the junction of the roads to Svintsovyi Rudnik and to Gaurdak, at light, 16.V.1991, leg. V. V. Dubatolov; 4 males Bazar-depe village, 13.V.1991, leg. V. V. Dubatolov.

Description. Male. Head, thorax, tegulae and antennae set with whitish scales; head bearing well developed frontal crests with a sharp outer edge. Palpae white, long, their first unit with a dense brush of scales. Legs are whitish-grey. Forewing length holotype 6.75 mm, paratypes 6.5-7.0 mm, wing expanse 14-15 mm. Forewings whitish-grey, to some extent darker than hindwings; four contrasting grey spots arranged into two lengthwise rows and 6-7 black dots along the outer margin (fig. 1); fringes of the same colour as the wing ground colour. Hindwing evenly white, slightly transparent, without spots.

Female. Unknown.

Male genitalia (Fig. 2). Uncus wide, tapering to the apex and split into two acute lobes, each ending with two or three teeth. Distal part of gnathos weakly sclerotized, proximal part represented by two heavily sclerotized tooth-like curved processes. Lateral appendages of transtilla (labis) narrow, long, slightly curved to uncus. Valva trilobate apically, with well expressed relatively wide cucculus. Saccus pointed apically. Aedeagus short, curved to half-ring.

Diagnosis. By the shape of the valva the new species comes closest to E. quadrinotella (Mann, 1861), inhabiting the southern and eastern Mediterranean, South-Western Asia and the southern Central Asia, especially to its subspecies E. quadrinotella quinquenotella (Chretien, 1915), but in the new species the costal process of the valve is quite wide, resembling that in some specimens of E. quadrinotella from Herat in West Afghanistan, and the apex of valva is trilobate, the central lobe being rounded; in a specimen of E. quadrinotella quinquenotella from Bahrain depicted by Sattler (1967) (fig. 3c) the apex is also trilobate, but the central lobe is strongly tapering to the apex. Nevertheless, both specimens strongly differ by the shape of the processes on the gnathos. In E. quadrinotella these are wide, dentate, in the new species these are narrow, without teeth. The apices of the uncus lobes also differ in the two species: in E. quadrinotella they are
rounded, while in the new species each lobe bears 2-3 small teeth.

Acknowledgements

The authors are very grateful to the administration of the Kuhitang Nature Reserve for assistance with the work, to Dr. A. L. Devjatkin (Moscow) for additional material, to Mr. V. M. Korshunov (Ashkhabad) for financing the 1991 expedition to Kuhitang, to Dr. O. E. Kosterin for his help with translation of the manuscript and the photographs of the moths.

References

Sattler, K. 1967. Ethmiidae. Microlepidoptera Palaearctica. 2 - Verlag Georg Fromme & Co, Wien. XVI+185 pp., 106 plates.