Paraswammerdamia albicapitella ( Scharfenberg, 1805 ) (Yponomeutidae)

Landry, Jean-François, Nazari, Vazrick, Dewaard, Jeremy R., Mutanen, Marko, Lopez-Vaamonde, Carlos, Huemer, Peter & Hebert, Paul D. N., 2013, Shared but overlooked: 30 species of Holarctic Microlepidoptera revealed by DNA barcodes and morphology, Zootaxa 3749 (1), pp. 1-93 : 20

9. Paraswammerdamia albicapitella ( Scharfenberg, 1805) (Yponomeutidae)

Phalaena albicapitella Scharfenberg, 1805: 803 . Type locality: [ Germany].

BOLD:AAN2906

Palearctic distribution. Europe.

New North American records. Canada: British Columbia, Victoria , 3 Aug 2006, at light, 1 ♂ ( CNC) .

Diagnosis. The head and dorsum of the thorax are white; the forewing is grey with irregular rows of small black dots, a white patch on the costa near apex and a black patch medially on the hind margin. Superficially it resembles dark specimens of P. conspersella and species of Swammerdamia , particularly if specimens are rubbed. The genitalia of both sexes are highly diagnostic. In the male, the socius lobes are markedly developed, sickleshaped and longer than the tegumen, with a medial tuft of long setae on the inner side; the valva has a large sacculus arising from the middle and with the distal half projecting off the ventral margin of the valva, the latter of which is basally lobate; the phallus is simple with smooth walls, the vesica with very small, fine, indistinct spinules in lieu of cornuti. In the female, the sterigma is a pair of apical digitiform, setose lobes projecting from the posterior margin of S8 and longer than the segment itself, which is shaped as two transversely crescentic halves on each side of the ostium, and the signum is lacking.

Larval host. Prunus spinosa , which is introduced in North America.

Note. There is little doubt that this is a recent introduction. There is barcode variation in European populations of this species. German specimens are somewhat divergent although all within the same BIN. The Canadian specimen shows closer barcode congruence to specimens from Finland and U.K.