Coleophora micronotella Toll, 1956

Landry, Bernard & Baldizzone, Giorgio, 2014, Description of the reduced mouth parts of Coleophoramicronotella Toll (Lepidoptera, Coleophoridae), with a new synonym, Nota Lepidopterologica 37 (1), pp. 43-48 : 44-45

Coleophora micronotella Toll, 1956 Figs 1-4

Material.

2 ♂ (one dissected, slide MHNG ENTO 5970), ♀ [Italy] 'SARDEGNA, Orien. | La Caletta | 2.VIII.81-lux | leg. Baldizzone’; 1 ♂ (head prepared for SEM), same data except ’29.VII.81’; 2 ♂ (one dissected, slide MHNG ENTO 7501), 'SARDEGNA, Merid. | Porto Botte | 23.VII.81-lux | leg. Baldizzone’, deposited in MHNG. 1 ♂ (dissected, slide MHNG ENTO 7503) [Tunisia] 'Mauretania | Tunesia-Sud | Oase Tozeur | 28.4.-11.5.1981 | leg. M. u. W. Glaser’, deposited in MHNG. Additional material, undissected: 194 specimens from Sardinia (leg. Baldizzone); 30 from Tunisia (24 from Tozeur, 1921, leg. Dumont; 7 from Tozeur e Gabes, 1980, leg. Glaser); deposited in collection Baldizzone.

Description of head.

Frontal aspect with appressed scales, with short, apparent scaled palpi, without proboscis. Ventral edge of fronto-clypeus slightly sinuate. Labrum not apparent. Maxillary palpi unsegmented, very short, with few scale sockets and setae, with apical sensillum styloconicum. Labial palpi slightly longer than maxillary palpi, reaching apices of subgenal apophyses, with two segments visible, apical segment about half as long as basal segment and lacking vom Rath’s organ. With sac-like rounded structure laterally from labial palpi.

Notes.

The halophilous biotope of La Caletta, where three of the specimens of Coleophora micronotella studied were collected, is about one kilometer away from the Mediterranean, on the sides of a small canal where tamarix ( Tamarix sp., Tamaricaceae ) grows. The specimens were collected with a black light in a salt marsh where Salicornia ( Amaranthaceae ) and other halophilous herbaceous plants were growing. Hundreds of specimens came to light, but could not come to rest on the sheet because of the presence of thousands of staphylinid beetles and flies. Falkovitsh (2005) recorded that the larva of Coleophora micronotella feeds as a borer, without making a case, in 'green branches (assimilating shoots)' of Halostachys caspica C.A. Mey. and Halocnemum strobilaceum (Pallas) Bieb. ( Amaranthaceae ).

Described from Tozeur, Tunisia, the species is also found in Italy (mainland, Sardinia, Sicily) and Spain. It has also been reported from Iran ( Baldizzone 1994), and Algeria, Kazakhstan, and Tadjikistan ( Falkovitsh 2005). However, a specimen from the Iranian series mentioned in Baldizzone (1994) was re-examined and found to represent another, probably undescribed species. Its mouth parts are more developed than in Coleophora micronotella , with the labial palpi about as long as 3/4 the widest diameter of the compound eye, but without apparent proboscis. Also, the male valva differs slightly in the distally larger and more evidently separated sacculus from the basally narrower valvula, and the phallus is narrow, needle-like, instead of spatulate.