Subject Editor: Jadranka Rota
Based on a single adult male collected in Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan) the new species
In the 1980s the Russian lepidopterists A. K. Zagulaev and S. Y. Sinev collected an unusual micromoth on the Crimean peninsula. The species could not be assigned readily to any of the known families in Europe. As a result of a detailed study of the adult morphology (head, abdomen, wing venation, male genitalia) the collectors were convinced of having discovered a representative of a hitherto unknown evolutionary lineage within the homoneuran
The concept of
The morphological differences between the two families involve head morphology, wing venation, wing coupling and abdominal sternites – strong characters which are usually of significant weight in other lepidopteran taxa, but in light of the shared, unique genital morphology of the males, these characters appear to be homoplasious and of less importance, and thus, are of little value for separating the two families. In this evolutionary lineage even the presence or absence of a frenulum or jugum is obviously of low phylogenetic significance in comparison with other superfamilies. In addition to the male genitalia the corresponding peculiar vestiture of the antennal segments also point to a close relationship of
Since 2002 Oleksiy Bidzilia from the Zoological Museum in Kiev has been a regular visitor to the
Holotype ♂, labeled: “
The external characters and the male genitalia of this new species are similar to
The two genera of
1 | Forewing uniformly coloured, or with fascia or fuscous and yellow spots; interocular index 0.75–0.8; medial process of transtilla serrate on ventral margin and tip upcurved; valva simple |
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– | Forewing uniformly coloured; interocular index 0.6; medial process of transtilla without serration and tip straight or down-curved; valva bifid |
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The hostplant of
Due to the arid climate Middle Asia is an impoverished refuge of Tertiary forests, which survived only in favorable places in the mountain chains of the Tianshan. This concerns especially the deciduous trees, which are present in large numbers (
The distance between the known localities of the two
Distribution of
The photograph of the adult moth was taken by Bernhard Schurian, and the English text was corrected by Jason Dunlop for which both colleagues deserve our sincere thanks. We are also grateful to Don Davis and Charley Eiseman for their reviews of the manuscript.