Zambezia jennyhuntae 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 : 62-64

Zambezia jennyhuntae Lehmann, Zahiri & Husemann sp. nov.

Figs 1a , 11b

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:104208C8-200E-4FAA-BA78-45FA36FBB05E

Type locality and repository: Zimbabwe, the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe, Bulawayo ( NMZB) .

Material examined. Holotype male, S. Rhodesia (‘ Southern Rhodesia’ since 1901, today Zimbabwe), Mashonaland, Umtali (today Mutare, Mutare District, Manicaland Province), no date, no collector mentioned on label, “Nat. Museum S. Rhodesia”, “Access. No. 4495”, genitalia slide number 01/062015 I. Lehmann ( NMZB) . Paratypes: male, same locality, no date, no collector mentioned, “Nat. Museum S. Rhodesia”, “Access. No. 4497”, genitalia slide number 19/092015 I. Lehmann ( NMZB); male, S. Rhodesia, Marandellas (today Marondera, Marondera District, Mashonaland East Province), October. 1960, no collector mentioned, “Nat. Museum S. Rhodesia”, “Access. No. 4474”, genitalia slide number 03/052015 I. Lehmann ( NMZB); male, Zimbabwe, Harare (Harare District, Harare Province), private garden in Highlands suburb ( North-Eastern Region ), called “Fawlty Towers”, 16.September. 2014, R. Butler leg. , genitalia slide number 17/052015 I. Lehmann ( ZFMK) .

Description. Male. Head: Honey-yellow mixed with shiny cream; long hair-like scales between eyes; eyes brown with black patches; antenna 0.48‒0.43× length of forewing, bipectinate, with branches 4× width of shaft, branches and shaft covered with cream-coloured scales dorsally and laterally; antennal tips not spatulate, with long scales, bending towards apex; labial palpi honey yellow.

Thorax: Patagia and tegulae with shiny, long hair-like scales of honey yellow mixed with ochre, sepia and pale cream. Small crest of pale cream on metathorax, glossy. Hindlegs yellow ochre with fine hair-like scales and a shiny; one pair of narrow tibial spurs present, unequal in length, outer spur 1.1 mm, inner spur 0.9 mm long. Forewing length of holotype 14.0 mm (wingspan 31.0 mm; 31.0‒33.0 mm in male paratypes). Forewing upperside contrasting with sepia coloured lines and striae on ochre ground colour, not glossy; a broad white band below CuA 2, latter broadly edged sepia above; sepia subterminal line straight, originating near costa, terminating at CuA 1, costa honey-yellow with sepia striae; many striae, all slightly oblique, on upperside, none forming continuous lines; veins not distinctly coloured; cilia long, 1.5 mm, pale cream, shiny; sepia spots at ends of veins along termen. Forewing underside roughly scaled, cream, with striae along costa and a faded subterminal line, slightly glossy; costal margin darker, honey-yellow mixed with sepia. Hindwing upperside cream, glossy; cilia as in forewing, costa of underside honey yellow.

Abdomen: Honey-yellow with cream, glossy; abdominal tuft one-third of abdomen length. Genitalia ( Fig. 11b ) with uncus bearing rounded tips, outer edge slightly C-shaped, inner edge rounded at base, wide emargination between tips of uncus lobes, almost three times as wide as upper half of uncus lobe, densely covered with short and long setae mainly along outer ventral edge, basal edge of uncus with a crescent-shaped bend at middle; gnathos arms long, touching costal margin of valva and connected posteriorly with a thin unsclerotized membrane, hand-like ends of gnathos arms not covered with tooth-shaped processes dorsally, tooth-like processes present only ventrally, narrow; valva ovoid, slightly broader at base, costa straight and with few setae, very few setae on semi-transtilla; sacculus very narrow with few long setae near base, absent from half of ventral edge towards very short thorn-like process; weakly-sclerotized projection extending half the length of costa, covered with short and long setae, with a rectangular tip not longer than short thorn-like process below; thorn-like process slightly curved upward, hollow, with a truncate tip and no dots with tiny setae, base broad and short, not as broad as width of weakly-sclerotized projection, and without a second thorn-like process; dorsal side of base of thorn-like process with tiny open slit attached to weakly-sclerotized projection; median sector of valva with few scattered short setae and two rows of setae on inner side; a long narrow ovoid emargination extending ca. 40% of length of valva between weakly-sclerotized projection and thorn-like process; ventral side of valva not bent at middle. Saccus smaller than juxta, triangular with a rounded tip, vinculum broader opposite saccus, forming a small plate slightly larger than saccus. Juxta broad with two acuminate tips, emargination between tips very deep (90% length of juxta). Phallus broad, 1.2× length of valva, not trumpet-like, slightly bent near middle, bilobed with cleft at each end.

Female. Unknown.

Diagnosis. Zambezia jennyhuntae is most similar to Z. diredaouaensis and Z. madambae . All share a very short, sclerotized, thorn-like, similarly shaped (volcano-like) process and a short, weakly-sclerotized projection not extending beyond the thorn-like process. The following three characters are shared with Metarbelodes umtaliana : (i) a thorn-like process with a broad sclerotized hollow base; (ii) a dorsally-open slit at the edge of this sclerotized base, connected by a thin membrane with the weakly-sclerotized projection; and (iii) the sacculus very narrow or absent. A unique combination of the following characters separates Z. jennyhuntae from all other species: (i) the gnathos-arms are covered at the hand-like end with many narrow tooth-like processes, particularly along edges; (ii) the uncus has broad lobes with rounded tips; and (iii) the emargination of the uncus is not deep, but almost as broad as the outer edge of one uncus lobe.

Distribution. Zambezia jennyhuntae is known from the Highveld of Zimbabwe (Harare, Marondera) and from Mutare (Manica Gap/Bvumba Mountains). Marondera ( Fig. 23a , formerly Marandellas), at an elevation of 1,611 – 1,654 m, is located ca. 55 km southeast of Harare on the northeastern Highveld Plateau and at the main road and railway line from Harare to Mutare. The area belongs to the Zambezian regional centre of endemism (sensu White 1983) and to the Southern Miombo Woodlands ecoregion (sensu Burgess et al. 2004). Zambezia jennyhuntae is considered an Afromontane linking species.

Habitat. See Appendix 1.

Etymology. Zambezia jennyhuntae is named in honour of Jennifer Jane Hunt (born in Broken Hill, now Kabwe, Zambia), a social worker specializing in palliative care and bereavement. We are grateful to her for arranging the transportation of the box with Metarbelidae from the collections of the NMZB to London in May 2015.

Figures

FIGURE 1. a. Zambezia jennyhuntae, holotype, male, Zimbabwe, Manicaland Province, Mutare (formerly Umtali); b. Z. durrellbarnesi, holotype, female, Zimbabwe, Manicaland Province, Bvumba Mountains; c. Z. darrelplowesi, holotype, female, Zimbabwe, Manicaland Province, Mutare (formerly Umtali), Hospital (today Kopje House); d. Metarbelodes umtaliana, holotype, male, Zimbabwe, Manicaland Province, Old Umtali or Umtali (today Mutare).

FIGURE 11. a. Zambezia madambae, holotype, male, Botswana, Chobe District Council, Kasane, Chobe River, Chobe Rapids; b. Z. jennyhuntae, holotype, male, Zimbabwe, Manicaland Province, Mutare (formerly Umtali); c. Metarbelodes umtaliana, holotype, male, Zimbabwe, Manicaland Province, Old Umtali or Umtali (today Mutare); d1. Lukeniana mzuzuensis, paratype, female, Malawi, Northern Region, Mzuzu, Nkho-rongo, female genitalia with ductus bursae and corpus bursae, both thinly membranous and without any structures; d2. Detail of female genitalia of L. mzuzuensis, paratype, with narrow bandson lateroventral surface of segment 8 (cf. red arrows); e. L. obliqualinea, holotype, male, Kenya, County Nairobi, Nairobi (picture taken by Kim Buckmaster, NHMUK, London (picture taken in 1996)..

FIGURE 23. a. Habitat of Zambezia jennyhuntae: The nearly evenly aged structure of the tree layer in a drier type of open miombo woodland dominated by Julbernardia globiflora (Benth.) Troupin (Caesalpiniaceae) and Brachystegia spiciformis Benth. (Caesalpiniaceae) close to Marondera (Zimbabwe) is due to anthropogenic activity since 1929. The young stand in the image is the result of protection of the miombo since the late 1960s. Photo by Rhett Butler (Harare), October 2015. b. Habitat of Zambezia durrellbarnesi: View from the summit of the Bvumba Mountains taken from Castle Beacon (1.911 m) in May 1969 by the late botanist Darrel Plowes (Mutare, Zimbabwe). Beyond the flowering Aloe arborescens Mill. (Aloaceae) (right) is the Burma Valley below and on the southeast side, the high hill in the middle distance is Leopard Rock, a so called “granite bornhardt”. Where the high Bvumba ground drops sharply down into the Burma Valley (730–880 m, both part of the post-African surface developing since 30–25 Ma) in the right centre of the picture, the Witchwood Valley forest or Bungu Forest, begins. The forests seen towards the Burma Valley and Leopard Rock are mixed submontane forests with the highest tree species diversity recorded for Zimbabwe (Müller 2006). Within a few kilometers an older erosion surface (possibly African Surface) may be preserved on Castle Beacon (Lister 1987; Andy Moore pers. com. to I.L. in 2016). The row of hills in the background forms the border with Mozambique and still belongs geomorphologically to the Bvumba Mountains.