Research Article |
Corresponding author: Sjaak J.C. Koster ( sjaak.koster@planet.nl ) Academic editor: Lauri Kaila
© 2019 Sjaak J.C. Koster, Giorgio Baldizzone, Helmut Deutsch, Peter Huemer, Erik J. van Nieukerken.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Koster SJC, Baldizzone G, Deutsch H, Huemer P, van Nieukerken EJ (2019) The Eastern Palaearctic Cosmopterix feminella Sinev, 1988, introduced in Italy: taxonomy, biology and a new synonymy (Lepidoptera, Cosmopterigidae). Nota Lepidopterologica 42(1): 49-61. https://doi.org/10.3897/nl.42.33962
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Cosmopterix feminella Sinev, 1988, previously known from the East Palearctic, Primorskiy Territory in Russia and Japan has been collected at light in Europe. In northern Italy 58 females were collected in two localities in the province Asti, two in Alessandria, three in Udine, and in one locality in Pordenone. Cosmopterix feminella is most likely parthenogenetic as only females are known. The caterpillars are leafminers on grasses. The species is redescribed and illustrated. DNA barcodes are provided and compared with other European species. Cosmopterix feminae Kuroko, 2015 is synonymised with C. feminella. The species was probably accidentally introduced into Italy.
The genus Cosmopterix Hübner, 1825 (Gelechioidea: Cosmopterigidae) comprises small, sometimes very small, moths with a striking and often beautiful forewing pattern. The majority of the species can easily be recognized by the broad yellow to orange fascia on the forewing. This fascia is often bounded by tubercular golden or silver metallic fasciae or spots. The wings are very narrow and acutely pointed. The larvae are leafminers, usually oligophagous or monophagous and have been found in the following plant families: predominantly on Cyperaceae, Fabaceae and Poaceae, fewer species on Asteraceae, Cannabaceae, Convolvulaceae, Dipterocarpaceae, Hydrangeaceae, Lamiaceae, Theaceae and Urticaceae (
In Italy in June 2015 eight specimens of an unknown Cosmopterix-species were collected in a light trap in Cascine Bet, near Mombarone (Asti, Valmanera biotope) in the region Piemonte by O. Maioglio. An additional specimen of this unknown species was collected in a light trap by C. Cabella in September 2016 in Pertuso Le Strette, Cantalupo, also in the region Piemonte, roughly about 90 km east of the first locality. This material was brought to the attention of Giorgio Baldizzone who sent the material to the first author. Almost simultaneously, between August 2015 and September 2016, Helmut Deutsch collected six females in the region Friuli Venezia Giulia in three localities in the province Udine at light. It was tentatively identified as C. crassicervicella Chrétien, 1896 and sequenced in the framework of the barcoding campaign “Lepidoptera of the Alps”. More material from the same and more localities became available in 2017 and 2018.
The collected specimens resembled Cosmopterix attenuatella (Walker, 1864) and C. crassicervicella, but lacked the orange brown or orange yellow markings on the dorsal side of the abdomen. After the examination of the female genitalia the species could be determined with certainty as C. feminella Sinev, 1988. DNA barcodes showed that the species from Piemonte and Friuli Venezia Giulia were conspecific.
Here we report the species new for Italy and Europe, and redescribe it in the format of the Microlepidoptera of Europe book series (
Material. The material from the region Piemonte has been collected with Actinic light and a light trap. Similarly specimens from Friuli Venezia Giulia were all collected at light. Material is listed in Table
Localities and material of Cosmopterix feminella in Italy. More details in Suppl. material
# ♀ | Region | Province | Locality | Collector | Date | DNA Barcodes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2 | Friuli Venezia Giulia | Pordenone | Bachbett Torrente Cimoliana, Umg. Cimolais | Toni Mayr | 24.vi.2017 | |
1 | Friuli Venezia Giulia | Udine | Colloredo, Prati di Lavia | H. Deutsch | 3.viii.2016 | |
3 | Friuli Venezia Giulia | Udine | Confl. Torre-Natisone, Medeuzza | H. Deutsch | 13.viii.2015 | TLMF Lep 22239, 22240, 24198 |
2 | Friuli Venezia Giulia | Udine | Interneppo, Mt. Festa | H. Deutsch | 2.ix.2016 | TLMF Lep 22241 |
2 | Friuli Venezia Giulia | Udine | Risorgive di Flambro-Virco | H. Deutsch | 4.viii.2016 | |
1 | Piemonte | Alessandria | Cantalupo, Pertuso, Le Strette | C. Cabella | 5.ix.2016 | RMNH.INS.15510 |
1 | Piemonte | Alessandria | Montechiaro d’Acqui, località Vaccamorta | G. Baldizzone | 13.ix.2018 | |
1 | Piemonte | Asti | fraz. Mombarone, Cascine Bet | O. Maioglio | 11.vi.2015 | |
7 | Piemonte | Asti | fraz. Mombarone, Cascine Bet | O. Maioglio | 12.vi.2016 | RMNH.INS.15509 |
15 | Piemonte | Asti | fraz. Mombarone, Cascine Bet | G. Baldizzone | 12.ix.2016 | |
1 | Piemonte | Asti | fraz. Mombarone, Cascine Bet | G. Baldizzone | 28.vii.2017 | |
8 | Piemonte | Asti | fraz. Mombarone, Cascine Bet | G. Baldizzone | 31.viii.2017 | |
4 | Piemonte | Asti | fraz. Mombarone, Cascine Bet | O. Maioglio | 14.ix.2018 | |
9 | Piemonte | Asti | Valmanera, sotto Cascina Giardina | O. Maioglio | 9.viii.2017 |
Morphology. Genitalia were dissected following the methodology presented by
The morphological terminology follows
Illustrations. The photograph of the adult was taken with a Zeiss AxioCam digital camera attached to a motorized Zeiss SteREO Discovery.V12, using Carl Zeiss AxioVision software. The female genitalia were depicted in line drawings in ventral position, and the drawing of the enlarged sterigma are given separately; these drawings have been reduced to 70% of the original drawing size. Drawings of the genitalia were made with a compound microscope using the camera lucida method. For this purpose a strong light source (slide projector) was used for the illumination on the mirror of the microscope. A prism was placed on top of the microscope eyepiece to bend the projection 90° and project the subject on drawing paper. All outlines were drawn by pencil and later set in Indian ink. Scale bars alongside the drawing show the size of the genitalia in 0.1 mm.
The map (Fig.
DNA extraction and sequencing. DNA barcodes of two specimens of C. feminella (RMNH.INS.15509 and RMNH.INS.15510) were derived from extracts taken from abdomens following the procedures outlined by van
Cosmopterix feminella Sinev, 1988: 709. Holotype ♀, Russia: Primorskiy Kray, Khasanskiy district, 3 km southeast Andreyevka, 5.viii.1985, Sinev (Coll. Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg) [examined].
Cosmopterix feminae Kuroko, 2015: 48. Holotype ♀, Japan: Mt. Hikosan, Fukuoka Pref., 26.vii.1955, reared from Digitaria violascens, Kuroko. (Coll. Entomological Laboratory, Osaka Prefecture University). Syn. n. [not examined].
Italy: 58♀. See Table
In Europe C. feminella resembles C. crassicervicella and C. attenuatella. The latter species occurs in Europe only in the Macaronesian Archipelago. It differs from both by the narrower forewings, which are ten times as long as wide compared to eight times in C. feminella and C. crassicervicella. In the forewing C. feminella can be distinguished from both other species by the absence of a white costal line in the basal area and by the absence of the apical protrusion of the orange-yellow fascia, and in the abdomen by the uniform ochreous-brown dorsal coloration. In C. attenuatella the abdomen is dorsally more or less spotted orange-brown and in C. crassicervicella the abdominal segments two to six are dorsally orange-yellow. The female genitalia of C. feminella can be recognised by the large central hump on the posterior edge of sternite VII, by the distally hood-shaped sterigma and by the small but prominent crescent-shaped signa.
Female (Fig.
Male genitalia. Male unknown.
Female genitalia (Fig.
The biology has been described by
Russia: Primorskiy Territory, Japan: Honshu and Kyushu, Italy: Piemonte and Friuli Venezia Giulia regions (Fig.
We obtained completely identical DNA barcodes from six specimens of C. feminella from Italy, all belonging to the new Barcode Index Number BOLD:ADG7284, and with a distance of 5.8% to the nearest neighbour, an unidentified Cosmopterix species from Madagascar with BIN BOLD:ACT2622 (specimen BIOUG18998-F03). This specimen was collected with a Malaise trap and therefore its external morphology is poorly preserved (
Cosmopterix feminella has been described on the basis of four females, caught between 25 July and 15 August in Primorskiy Kray, in the south-east of the Russian Far East.
In his study on the genus Cosmopterix of Japan,
Cosmopterix feminae is here synonymized with C. feminella for the following reasons: In the European series from Italy the apical segment of the antenna is white in 12 specimens, but it is dark grey in two specimens and black in one specimen, thus this character is apparently not constant. According to the original description of C. feminella the subcostal line also starts from the base of the forewing.
The type series of both C. feminella from Russia and C. feminae from Japan, including reared material, consist of females only. On this basis
The finding of so many specimens of a species otherwise only known from the eastern Palearctic, thousands of kilometres away, is probably best explained by accidental introduction. How this happened is difficult to trace, but it is likely aided by human transport, either imported with plant material from Asia, introduced unintentionally as a contaminant with foreign grass seed, or even as adults inside some means of transport. One piece of grass with a pupa might have been sufficient, as for introduction of a parthenogenetic species just one specimen could be enough. Globalization has led to an increasing number of introduced alien insects from many parts of the world (
For establishing populations, it is important that the species finds suitable hostplants. Both cited hostplants are known as introduced plants in Europe. The distribution of Digitaria ciliaris has been discussed in detail by
We acknowledge Carlo Cabella (Novi Ligure, Italy) and Oscar Maioglio (Asti, Italy) for sharing collected specimens with GB, and Toni Mayr (Feldkirch, Austria) for providing data of the material from his collection. Frank Stokvis (Naturalis, Leiden, Netherlands) is thanked for sequencing work. The entire team at the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding (CCDB, Guelph, Canada) is acknowledged for carrying out sequence analyses of material from TLMF. We are grateful to Lauri Kaila, Toshiya Hirowatari, Sergey Sinev and an anonymous reviewer for comments that helped improve the manuscript. PH is indebted to the Promotion of Educational Policies, University and Research Department of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano - South Tyrol, Italy, and to the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economics for funding projects which contributed to the dataset.
Specimen data Cosmopterix feminella
Data type: Excel file
Explanation note: Specimen data, collection details, coordinates.