Collita Moore, 1878

Macià, Ramon, Ylla, Josep, Gastón, Javier, Huertas, Manuel & Bau, Josep, 2022, The species of Eilema Hübner, [1819] sensu lato present in Europe and North Africa (Lepidoptera: Erebidae: Arctiinae: Lithosiini), Zootaxa 5191 (1), pp. 1-87 : 40-41

Genus Collita Moore, 1878 .

Collita Moore, 1878 . Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1878:3–37, pls. 1–3.

Type species: Bombyx griseola Hübner, [1803] ; Sammlung Europäischer Schmetterlinge Bomb.: 126 [`Ziefer´-text]. pl. 23, fig. 97 by original designation.

Diagnosis.

Imago. Forewings broad, with a convex costal margin; pale costal line often absent.

Male genitalia. Uncus of moderate width; valvae with apically contracted costal and saccular processes; a very wide sclerotised saccular part of the valvae clearly angulated or with a process on the ventral margin; outer margin of valvae often serrated; juxta with a long apical process; vinculum long, trapezoid.Aedeagus with an apical sclerotised fascia and short apical spur and numerous cone-shaped cornuti of unequal size; vesica huge, pouchshaped, with irregular lobes and an additional spinal field.

Female genitalia. Anal papillae well developed and sclerotised, with small apophysis; ostium bursae wide and sclerotised; ductus broad, short and strongly sclerotised; corpus bursa spherical, with two ovoid-shaped signa. Membranous wart filled with a multitude of micro-spines in the upper part of the ductus. Thick membranous process of great length (as much as the bursa) in the area of contact of the ductus bursa with the corpus bursa, where the ductus seminalis originates.

Molecular data. A single species of this genus ( Collita griseola ) has been analysed, so we cannot be certain if the results presented for this species would also apply to the whole genus. According to Dubatolov (2011), there are many more species included in Collita , for example, Collita chinensis (Daniel, 1954) ; Collita coreana (Leech, 1888) ; Collita digna ( Ignatyev& Witt, 2007) ; Collita gina (Okano, [1955]) , Collita okanoi (Inoue, 1961) and Collita vetusta (Walker, 1854) .

None of them has been available to the authors and so it has not been possible to include their study in the present work.

Future molecular studies including species placed in the genus Collita will provide additional insight into this genus.

Taxa included.

Collita griseola (Hübner, [1803])