Zambezia diredaouaensis Lehmann, Zahiri & Husemann, 2023

Lehmann, Ingo, Zahiri, Reza & Husemann, Martin, 2023, Revision of the Metarbelodes Strand, 1909 genus-group (Lepidoptera: Cossoidea: Metarbelidae) with descriptions of two new genera and 33 new species from high elevations of eastern and southern Africa, Zootaxa 5267 (1), pp. 1-106 : 57-58

Zambezia diredaouaensis Lehmann, Zahiri & Husemann sp. nov.

Figs 2c , 9d , 14f

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:0E5B98AB-034A-4760-ABB2-5FECFA508EBE

Type locality and repository: Ethiopia, the National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi ( NMK) .

Material examined. Holotype male, Ethiopia, Dire Daua (formerly also known as Dire Daoua , now Dire Dawa, chartered city of Dire Dawa), February 1964, R. Hill leg., genitalia slide number 05/052015 I. Lehmann ( NMK).

Description. Male. Head: Honey-yellow, shiny; long hair-like scales between eyes; eyes brown with small black spots; antenna unusually long, 0.57× length of forewing, bipectinate, with branches 5× width of shaft, branches and shaft covered with cream-coloured scales dorsally; antennal tips with long scales, bending towards apex; labial palpi honey yellow.

Thorax: Patagia and tegulae shiny, long, hair-like scales of honey yellow mixed with ochre and cream. A small crest of cream scales on metathorax. Hindlegs yellow ochre with fine, shiny, hair-like scales; a pair of narrow tibial spurs of unequal length, outer spur 1.1 mm, inner spur 0.9 mm. Forewing length 16.0 mm (wingspan 35.0 mm). Forewing upperside pale ochre, not glossy, with very broad, white patch below CuA 2, extending from base of CuA 2 to dorsum, broadest at dorsum, covering one-third the width between base of wing and CuA 2, narrowly edged sepia above; costal white patch from base of wing to half its length honey yellow, lacking striae; a few striae parallel to termen, or representing very faint subterminal and postmedial lines; veins not distinctly coloured; cilia very long, 2.1 mm, shiny pale cream; lunules faint or absent along termen. Underside of forewing rough-scaled, cream, without striae, glossy; costal margin darker, honey-yellow mixed with sepia. Hindwing upperside and cilia glossy pale cream, cilia 2.1 mm long. Underside as in forewing.

Abdomen: Honey yellow mixed with cream, glossy; abdominal tuft less than one-third abdominal length. Genitalia ( Fig. 14f ) with uncus nearly rectangular, outer edge slightly C-shaped, inner edge rounded at base, lobes densely covered with short setae ventrally, basal edge of uncus with a crescent-shaped bend; gnathos arms slightly longer than width of valva, not touching coastal margin of valva, bent towards uncus, hand-like ends connected posteriorly with a thin membrane, not sclerotized; valva broadly ovoid, costa oblique, a broad transverse semi-transtilla with many setae; sacculus with long setae near base of thorn-like process; weakly-sclerotized projection with short setae and a broad rectangular tip, equal in length to single narrow and very short thorn-like process below extending not beyond upper edge of weakly-sclerotized projection; thorn-like process slightly curved upward, hollow, with an acuminate tip and no dots with tiny setae, base very broad, 2× as wide as weakly-sclerotized projection above, and without a second thorn-like process; median sector of valva with few scattered short setae on inner side; a short, broad, ovoid emargination extending between weakly-sclerotized projection and thorn-like process, ca. 30% of length of valva; ventral side of valva slightly bent at middle. Saccus smaller than juxta and triangular shaped with a rounded tip; vinculum very broad, opposite the saccus with plate-like structure that four times larger than saccus. Juxta broad with two acuminate tips, emargination between tips very deep, 90% length of juxta. Phallus 1.2× length of valva, not trumpet-like, strongly bent near middle, bilobed with a cleft at each end.

Female. Unknown.

Diagnosis. The genitalia of Zambezia diredaouaensis are largest of any in the genus. Based on the shape of the uncus, Zambezia diredaouaensis is related to L. obliqualinea . However, other features, e.g., the large wing size and pattern elements (i.e., the large white patch below CuA 2 in the forewing), suggest a closer relationship to L. rajaeii . A large white patch below CuA 2 also occurs in L. stueningi . Of taxonomic relevance are not characters of any wing “pattern”, but characters of the male genitalia shared with Z. jennyhuntae and Z. madambae : (i) an extremely short sclerotized thorn-like process with a truncate tip; (ii) a very broad base of this process that covers half the valva (volcano- shaped); (iii) a short weakly-sclerotized projection not extending beyond the thorn-like process.

Characters shared with Metarbelodes umtaliana , Z. jennyhuntae and Z. madambae include the following: (i) dorsally an open slit at the base of the thorn-like process where it is connected by a narrow membrane to the weaklysclerotized projection; and sacculus very narrow or absent. Three characters separate Z. diredaouaensis from the latter two species: (i) the fold of the CuP vein in the forewing is weak and not continuous; (ii) the basal edge of the sclerotized thorn-like process is 2× as broad as the weakly-sclerotized projection above; and (iii) the vinculum appears very broad opposite the saccus since it is four times larger than the saccus.

Distribution. Zambezia diredaouaensis is recorded only from Dire Dawa ( Ethiopia) (elevation 1,119 –1,325 m), which is located ca. 41 km northwest of Harar and on the escarpment zone north and below of the ca. 1,500 m rim of the Harar Plateau that extends from the Chercher Mountains southeast of the Awash Plain to the area of Hargeysa in the West ( Braukämper 1983). The area belongs to the Afromontane archipelago-like regional centre of endemism. Zambezia diredaouaensis is considered an Afromontane near-endemic species.

Habitat. See Appendix 1.

Etymology. The new species is named after Dire Daoua (now called Dire Dawa, Ethiopia).

Figures

FIGURE 2. a. Lukeniana butleri, paratype, male, Zimbabwe, Harare Province, Harare, “Fawlty Towers”; b. L. butleri, paratype, female, Zimbabwe, Harare Province, Harare, “Fawlty Towers”; c. L. kollhorsti, holotype, male, Zimbabwe, Manicaland Province, Busi Farm; d. Zambezia diredaouaensis, holotype, male, Ethiopia, Harar Plateau, Dire Daua, today: chartered city of Dire Dawa; e. Z. madambae, holotype, male, Botswana, Chobe District Council, Kasane, Chobe River, Chobe Rapids; f. Z. madambae, paratype, female, Botswana, Chobe District Council, Kasane, Chobe River, Chobe Rapids.

FIGURE 9. Wing venation of: a. Zambezia darrelplowesi, female, holotype (Zambezia = subgroup G1 in Lehmann 2019b); b. Lukeniana obliqualinea, female, Kenya, County Nairobi, Ngong (Lukeniana = subgroup G3 in Lehmann 2019b); c. Zambezia madambae, male, holotype; d. Z. diredaouaensis, male, paratype; e. Lukeniana tubiraensis, male, holotype; f. Metarbelodes umtaliana, male, holotype (Metarbelodes = subgroup G2 in Lehmann 2019b). The areole (blue arrows) is a possible plesiomorphy (in Lehmann 2019b, p. 24), the continuous CuP fold (red arrows), partly sclerotized, is a very rare apomorphy (in Lehmann 2019b, p. 25) among species of Metarbelidae. It has been found only in species close to or to the South of the Zambezi River. In the same areas an intact CuP on the forewing occurs only in basal species (as defined by Lehmann 2019b, pp. 24 and 25) of Metarbelidae (Lehmann 2019b). The complete loss of the CuP in the forewing is another apomorphy (Lehmann 2019b, p. 322) that occurs in the majority of species of Metarbelidae in theAfrotropical Region and Oriental Region (seeFigure 39).Drawings by I.L.

FIGURE 14. a. Lukeniana bergsteni, paratype, male, Tanzania, Kilimanjaro Region, Mount Kilimanjaro, Kibonoto; b. L. carolae, holotype, male, Malawi, Central Region, Mount Ntchisi, Ntchisi Forest Reserve; c. L. stevecollinsi, holotype, male, Malawi, Northern Region, Nyika Plateau, Nyika National Park, near Thazima Gate; d. L. butleri, paratype, male, Zimbabwe, Harare Province, Harare, “Fawlty Towers”; e. L. kollhorsti, holotype, male, Zimbabwe, Manicaland Province, Busi Farm; f. Zambezia diredaouaensis, holotype, male, Ethiopia, Harar Plateau, Dire Daua, today: chartered city of Dire Dawa.