Parectopa melanoxyla De Prins, Sruoga & Zwick, 2025

Prins, Jurate De, Hartley, Diana, Sruoga, Virginijus, Nicholls, James, Wallace, Jesse & Zwick, Andreas, 2025, Diversity of Australian Ornixolinae (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae) with taxonomic and nomenclatural acts within the related taxa (Acrocercopinae and Gracillariinae) based on the evidence of museomics, bionomics, and mitogenomics, Zootaxa 5616 (1), pp. 1-340 : 216-217

Parectopa melanoxyla De Prins, Sruoga & Zwick , sp. nov.

( Figs 444, 453, 454, 456, 459, 460, 468, 637)

Type locality: Australia, New South Wales: Braidwood .

Type specimen: Holotype ♂: [labels verbatim] [1] 9 mls [miles] E. [east] of/Braidwood/N. S.W. [New South Wales]

30 September 1948 /I.F.B. Common; [2] Host: Acacia / melanoxylon /leaf miner, DNA sample NULT022889, genitalia slide ANIC 6283, ANIC Acc. no 31 085622, in ANIC (Canberra).

Type depository: Australian National Insect Collection , Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia .

Diagnosis: No significant difference in external morphology compared with Parectopa acaciella sp. nov. except darker colouration in P. melanoxyla sp. nov. in comparison with its sister species and brightly shining white vertex.

The diagnostic differences should be searched in internal morphological characters of genitalia and in mitogenomics.

Parectopa melanoxyla sp. nov. is the sister lineage to the clade P. braidella + P. acaciella sp. nov.

● In P. acaciella sp. nov. aedeagus is thick in girth; in P. melanoxyla sp. nov. the aedeagus is significantly slender, consisting of two visibly separatable parts;

● In P. acaciella sp. nov. the transition between the coecum and the body of aedeagus is smooth; in P. melanoxyla sp. nov. the transition between the coecum and the body of aedeagus is abrupt;

● In P. acaciella sp. nov. the cornutus on vesica is sickle-shaped, thick; in P. melanoxyla sp. nov. two rod-shaped cornuti placed at a distance from each other;

Description: Wingspan 9.0– 9.1 mm; length of the forewing 4.8–4.9 mm ( Fig. 444).

Head ( Figs 453, 454): vertex white smooth with light ochreous intermixed scales, occiput with two tufts of short piliform scales, directed posteriad, frons white smooth, consisting of suppressed, rather long, piliform scales; maxillary palpus short, white; labial palpus slender, as long as ca. 2× diameter of eye, with sharp apex, directed straight forward, covered with roughly attached dirty white scales, mid palpomere with light ochreous apical part; antenna approximately as long as forewing dark brown dorsally, white ventrally; scape dark ochreous, concolourous with antenna dorsally, shining white ventrally.

Thorax ( Fig. 444): dirty white, tegula dark ochreous. Forewing ground colour brown ochreous with three costal and two dorsal strigulae and a white mid-dorsal patch; first costal strigula with prolonged basal stripe running at the edge of costa, the second narrow oblique strigula at the mid of forewing, the third strigula stripe-shaped with elongated basal part at sub-apical sector; dorsal margin with a narrow straight stripe at base, first oblique dorsal strigula long, narrow reaches the mid of forewing, followed by dorsal mid patch, and narrow sub-apical oblique strigula at sub-apex; apical area is marked by tiny transverse fascia, black apical spot connected with wite apical stripe; apical line black, rather thick, gently runs around the apex of the forewing, fringe line, thick, dark brown. Hindwing brown, narrow, with a sharply pointed apex. Fringe long, brown fuscous, darker on tornus, dense. Legs rather slender, tarsomeres of mid legs brown with white apical parts, hind legs more or less monochromous beige.

Abdomen ( Fig. 468): dorsally dark ochreous, tip of the genital segment light beige. Abdominal opening trapezoidal, lateral sides of abdominal opening on sternum II broadly and strongly sclerotised especially anteriorly; posterior corners of abdominal opening angulated; ventral crossing joint thin, complete, very thin at mid part; sternal apodemes absent, tergal apodemes rather thick, broadened at bases, slightly distancing from each other at apical part, reaching posterior 1/3 of sternum II; tiny appendages are present at sub-basal part, sternal plate on sternum II semi-oval shaped, strongly sclerotised; the anterior margin of the anterior genital segment with a very narrow sclerotised band and two pairs of lateral tuberculate plates carrying filiform coremata, anterior margin of every segment in males with a melanised band.

Male genitalia ( Figs 459, 460): Tegumen reduced, shortened, sclerotised teguminal arms fused, arc-shaped, narrow; uncus strongly developed, truncate, tuberculose, apical part cone-shaped with numerous strong, standing setae; valvae short, broad, truncate and densely setose at cucullus, ventral apical part with deep concave indentation dividing valva into two parts, sacculus is digitiform, basal apophyses of valva long but at a distance from each other; transtilla absent, juxta developed. Vinculum broad, fully sclerotised with internal visible sutures diving the basal part of vinculum into the left and right sides; saccus not developed. Aedeagus ca. 1/3 longer than valva, consisting of two parts a stem with bulbed coecum and a cap with blunt vesica that carries two narrow rod-shaped cornuti: apical cornutus ca. 2× longer than sub-apical cornutus that is arrow shaped with its pointed part directed towards coecum.

Female genitalia: No data.

Mitogenomic data: The species is placed as sister to P. braidella sp. nov. + P. acaciella sp. nov., but without support for the latter clade ( Fig. 637). Its phylogenetic position within the genus is essentially unresolved.

Bionomics ( Fig. 456): Fabaceae : Acacia melanoxylon R.Br. Mining period is about the end of September. Cocoon attached to the rib of the leaf. Pupa shining light bronze, antenna, meso- and metathoracic legs and fore wing appendages with strong bronze glow; the appendages for future antennae, posterior legs and wings are free, not attached to the pupal case; appendages for future maxillary palpus, labial palpus, proboscis, fore and mid legs attached to each other but not fused in a pupal case; pupal body is rather slender.

Distribution: Known from the type locality only: Australia: New South Wales, Braidwood.

Etymology: The specific name of this species of moth derives from the specific epithet of the host plant Acacia melanoxylon R.Br. ( Fabaceae ). It is a noun of feminine gender in apposition, in the nominative case.