Chlamydastis ronaldzunigai Phillips and Brown, 2021

Phillips-Rodríguez, Eugenie, Brown, John W., Hallwachs, Winnie & Janzen, Daniel H., 2021, Chlamydastis Meyrick of Costa Rica: barcodes, biology, and descriptions of 36 new species (Lepidoptera: Depressariidae), Insecta Mundi 2021 (868), pp. 1-96 : 44-45

Chlamydastis ronaldzunigai Phillips and Brown , new species

Figures 47, 86, 120

Holotype. Male, Costa Rica, Guanacaste, ACG, Sector El Hacha, Estación Los Almendros, 5.xi.2011, E. Cantillano, reared from larvae feeding on Chrysophyllum brenesii ( Sapotaceae ), 11-SRNP-20864, GenBank accession code JQ523251 ( USNM).

Paratypes (14♂, 3♀): See Appendix 1.

Diagnosis. Chlamydastis ronaldzunigai is most similar to C. munifigueresae , but it is easily distinguished from the latter by its much broader tegumen, apically more rounded valva, slenderer basal portion of the valva, and its apically pointed uncus.

Description. MALE ( Fig. 47). Head. Frons beige, vertex beige with light brown scales; labial palpus beige; antenna with sensory setae ca. 1.5 times width of flagellomere. Thorax. Tegula and dorsum golden yellow. FW length 4.9–5.2 mm; FW two-toned, mostly pale cream in basal 0.4 with irregular brownish costal spot at 0.15 distance from base to apex, a brown dot near center of FW base, a faint brown dot near base near hind margin; raised brownish scales on posterior 0.5 of wing between golden FW base and remainder of wing; distal 0.6 of FW brown with irregular yellowish-pale orange markings as follow: costal 0.5 with three yellow-orange spots originating at costa, one near border with golden base of FW, second reaching 0.5 of FW, and a third originating from costa directed towards apex; an irregular yellow patch at center of FW with upraised brown scales; posterior 0.5 with another small patch of upraised brown scales at medial line level; an interrupted, terminal orange line extending from costa to posterior margin. HW dark brown. Abdomen. Brown externally. Genitalia ( Fig. 86) with uncus long, wide, bent ca. 0.4 distance from base to apex, with a pointed tip, bearing fine setae; gnathos narrow; valva divided longitudinally into broader, apically-rounded dorsal part bearing specialized setae subapically on costa, and narrow, elongate-digitate basal part; phallus short, broad, curved throughout.

FEMALE. Head and Thorax. Essentially as described for male, except sensory setae of antenna short, sparse; FW length 7.8–8.5 mm. Abdomen. Genitalia ( Fig. 120) with papillae anales broad, narrowed and diverging posteriorly; sterigma a lightly sclerotized band; ostium with area of sclerotization; ductus bursae broad, with patch of sclerotized lines ca. 0.33 distance from ostium to junction with corpus bursae; ductus bursae intersecting ovoid corpus bursae at angle; signum a small, slender dentate patch.

DNA barcodes. The 11 barcode sequences of C. ronaldzunigai form a BIN (BOLD:AAH5243) with an average distance of 0.22% among sequences and a distance of 6.92% to its nearest neighbor, C. munifigueresae .

Distribution. Chlamydastis ronaldzunigai has been collected in Costa Rica in the ACG dry forest and at the dry forest-rain forest lowland intergrade, from 300 to 700 m elevation.

Biology. This species has been reared from larvae feeding on Chrysophyllum brenesii ( Sapotaceae ) (n = 3).

Etymology. Chlamydastis ronaldzunigai is a patronym for Ronald Zúñiga in recognition of his continuous curatorial and taxonomic contributions to the national biodiversity inventory of Costa Rica.