Descriptions of new Tortricidae (Lepidoptera) reared from native fruit in Kenya
Author
Razowski, Józef
Author
Brown, John W.
text
Zootaxa
2012
3222
1
27
journal article
45308
10.5281/zenodo.280255
9d264785-6035-49e2-b6cf-29e3022a6e80
1175-5326
280255
Cosmetra
Diakonoff, 1977
Type
species:
Cosmetra anthophaga
Diakonoff, 1977
.
Cosmetra
includes three species restricted to the Afrotropical region:
C. anthophaga
Diakonoff, 1977
(
type
species) from
Réunion
Island,
C. rythmosema
Diakonoff, 1992
from
Madagascar
, and
C. neka
Razowski &
Brown, 2009
from
South Africa
. We provisionally assign to the genus two new species described below and transfer
Sycacantha nereidopa
(
Meyrick, 1937
)
to
Cosmetra
,
new combination
.
Based on recent work focused on the Afrotropical Region,
Razowski et al. (2010)
synonymized
Polychrosis hendrickxi
Ghesquière, 1940
(TL:
Belgian Congo
[
Zaire
]) with
Eucosma nereidopa
Meyrick, 1927
(TL:
Kenya Colony
[
Kenya
]) and its synonym
Eucosma phylloscia
(
Meyrick, 1937
)
(TL:
Uganda
), and transferred them to
Sycacantha
(Olethreutini)
. They provided illustrations of the
holotype
adult and male genitalia of
P. hendrickxi
(
Razowski et al. 2010
: figs. 37, 81). Illustrations of the
holotypes
of
S. nereidopa
and
S. phylloscia
can be found in
Clarke (1958: 376)
. Below we describe two new species from
Kenya
reared from native fruit that are morphologically similar to
nereidopa
, the latter of which is a well-known pest of coffee in Africa (e.g.,
Coffee Research Services 1963
;
Evans 1968
,
1970
;
Waller et al. 2007
;
Hill 2008
). There is little question that these African species are congeneric, and based on the female genitalia they do not belong in
Sycancatha
or in
Olethreutini
. We provisionally describe our two new species in
Cosmetra
Diakonoff, 1977
and provisionally transfer
nereidopa
to that genus. However, it is likely that the three require a new genus.