Lyonetia pulverulentella Zeller, 1839 (Lyonetiidae)

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 : 21-24

12. Lyonetia pulverulentella Zeller, 1839 (Lyonetiidae)

Lyonetia pulverulentella Zeller, 1839: 216 . Type locality: “Böhmen” ( Czech Republic).

BOLD:AAH6132

Palearctic distribution. Europe and Russia to Ukraine.

New North American records. Canada: British Columbia, near Hazelton , 30 Jul 2009, 5 ♂, 4 unsexed ( CNC, PFRC, RBCM, SEM) .

Diagnosis. BC specimens are predominantly dark, the forewings with a grey ground colour and suffused with brown-tipped scales; there are two transversely oblique fuscous brown fasciae in the basal half, and in the apical portion two short, fuscous subapical bars, one subapical fuscous spot and a projecting fuscous pencil in the terminal white cilia typical of Lyonetia . In Europe pulverulentella has variable colouration, like most species of Lyonetia , with the majority being predominantly pale. North American specimens are superficially similar to saliciella . In male genitalia, the paired caudal extensions of T8 are parallel to each other with straight apices (incurved, outcurved, or attenuate in other species), the apex of the uncus is upcurved with a sharp but shallow notch (pointed or deeply notched in others), and the apex of the valva is truncate (rounded in others). In female genitalia (not illustrated), the corpus bursae is narrowly elongate, without signum.

Larval host. Willows ( Salix spp. ) ( Bengtsson & Johansson 2011).

Note. The Canadian specimens of pulverulentella were initially identified by default as L. saliciella Busck, 1904 , which was described from British Columbia (type locality: Kaslo). There is a possibility that saliciella is conspecific with pulverulentella . Examination of the type of saliciella Busck will be necessary to ascertain whether this could be a synonym, but this could not be done within the scope of this work. The CNC has a series under saliciella that was reared from Salix as well as from Populus . There is no taxonomic treatment of North American Lyonetia but L. prunifoliella was treated in detail by Schmitt et al. (1996). The collecting locality of the pulverulentella records is the same as for Caloptilia suberinella (see note about that species above) and the issue with a possible case of synonymy is also similar.