Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Cryptophasa stenoleuca



Cryptophasa stenoleuca (Lower, 1894)


QM

Cryptophaga stenoleuca Lower, 1894. New Australian Heterocera. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia  18: 77–113 [89]. Holotype: SAMA ♀ (Lower stated that the holotype was a male; either he mistook the sex or the specimen in SAMA from Duaringa is not the holotype), Duaringa, Qld.
Cryptophaga stenoleuca. Illidge, 1895: Xylorycts, or timber moths. Queensland Natural History Society Transactions, 1, 29-34.
Cryptophaga stenoleuca Lower. Turner, 1898. The Xyloryctidae of Queensland. Annals of the Queensland Museum 4: 1–32 [7].
Cryptophasa stenoleuca (Lower, 1894). Common, in Nielsen, Edwards, & Rangsi, 1996, Checklist of the Lepidoptera of Australia. Monographs on Australian Lepidoptera, 4: i-xiv, 1-529 & CD-ROM [87].
Cryptophasa stenoleuca (Lower, 1894). Beccaloni, G. W., Scoble, M. J., Robinson, G. S. & Pitkin, B. (Editors). 2003. The Global Lepidoptera Names Index (LepIndex). World Wide Web electronic publication. http://www.nhm.ac.uk/entomology/lepindex [accessed 20 April 2010].
Cryptophasa stenoleuca (Lower, 1894). Edwards, E. D. (2003), Xyloryctinae. Australian Faunal Directory. Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra. http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/abrs/online-resources/fauna/afd/taxa/XYLORYCTINAE [accessed 18 June 2010].

Original description, Lower 1894
Cryptophaga stenoleuca, n. sp.
Male, 40 mm. Head and thorax fuscous; abdomen whitish, with ferruginous segmental rings, second segment broadly orange-red; antennae and palpi yellowish-white; legs grey-whitish. Forewings moderately oblong, posterior slightly dilated. Costa straight, apex obtuse, hindmargin straight, with a slight sinuation beneath apex; fuscous, finely irrorated with black scales; a narrow whitish streak along costa from very near base almost to apex, attenuated at extremities; two very suffused and hardly traceable small dark-fuscous patches in centre of wing; two from near middle; cilia dark-fuscous, with a fine whitish line at base. Hindwings with hindmargin somewhat projecting at anal angle; snow-white, infuscated along hindmargin and apical half of wing; cilia snow-white, towards apex slightly infuscated.
One specimen, Duaringa, Queensland.
Nearest irrorata, Lew., but differs from that species by the white costal streak, besides being a more slender insect.

Other references

Cryptophaga stenoleuca, Lower. Proc. Roy. Soc. S.A. 1894, 89).
Male, 39 mm.; antennal pectinations, 4. Female, 47 mm. A fine and very distinct species. Mr. Dodd obtained a pair at Charters Towers from larvae found on a species of Grevillea (?). Lower’s type came from Duaringa. (Turner, 1898).

Diagnosis:
Description:
Head:
Thorax:
Abdomen:
Food plants: Larva boring in stem. Larval foodplant: Grevillea striata (Proteaceae). (Edwards, 2003).
Flight period:
Distribution: New South Wales, Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia. Endemic. (Edwards, 2003).

Remarks: