S. Mahunka szerk.: Folia Entomologica Hungarica 56. (Budapest, 1995)

Diagnosis: resembling A. lateritia (related) and A. vicaria (not related) due to its ochraceous-reddish-brownish coloration, but transversal lines on forewings extremely crenulate. Male genitalia: digitus short, straight; female genitalia: ovipositor huge, extremely sclerotized. Description. One of the larger species of the genus Apamea. Length of forewings 17 mm (holotype), 16.5-18 mm (paratype, males) and 17.5-19 mm (paratype, females), resp. Wingspan: 34.5 mm (holotype, male), 35-36.5 mm (paratype, males) and 35-37 mm (paratype, females), resp. Antennae filiform, finely ciliated (male), thin and without cilia (female). Head and thorax brownish, with ochraceous-yellowish and light reddish hairs. Abdomen dull ochraceous, with darker tufts on the 1-2 segments; coremata present. Forewing pale ochraceous-yellowish or pale brownish-ochraceous with finely dispersed orange-reddish, reddish-brown or - in some specimens - dark greyish-brown scales. Intensity of darker suffusion extremely variable. Veins covered by lighter ochraceous scales. Reniform and orbicular regular, pale ochraceous, more greyish than ground-colour; claviform obsolescent. Transversal lines blackish-brown, heavily marked, antemedial more regularly, postmedial extremely irregularly crenulate. Submarginal line obsolescent, marginal field with darker suffusion, dissected by pale ochraceous veins. Fringe brownish. Hindwing nearly unicolorous ochraceous brown with greyish suffusion. Medial line and lunule obsolescent. Underside of wings greyish-ochraceous or dull ochraceous, postmedial line and lunules well-marked (Figs 1-3). Male genitalia (Figs 5-7) display some general similarity with those of Apamea lateritia (Hufnagel, 1766). Valvae with well-developed cucullus and corona. Digitus short, straight. Ampulla thin, at the basal third angulate. Clavus (= "dorsal extension of sacculus" sec. Lafontaine) finely granulöse, covered by short setae. Juxta medium-sized, broad, basally with a broad, more sclerotized bulge, upper part with small, U-shaped incision. Aedeagus slightly arcuate, carina heavily sclerotized with a ventral dentition, vesica with two small, acute cornuti with sclerotized basal plates. Female genitalia highly characteristic (Fig. 8). Ovipositor huge, posterior lobes heavily sclerotized and covered by short, thick setae. Ostium extremely broad, U-shaped, ductus bursae densely folded, rugulose and granulöse, heavily sclerotized. Remarks. The new species is rather, but not very closely related to A. lateritia (Hufnagel, 1766). Apamea vicaria (Püngeler, 1902) (Fig. 4) having some external similarity by its wing markings belongs to a completely other species group within the genus Apamea and is very closely related to the A. maillardi-zeta species group, perhaps only an extremely marked subspecies of the very polytypic and polymorphic A. zeta (Treitschke, 1825). The new species can easily be separated from all known Apamea species by its wing markings and by its very specialized female genitalia displaying some convergent similarity with those of Resapamea species: huge posterior lobes of ovipositor, densely folded, rugulose and granulöse ductus bursae (see: Varga & Ronkay 1992), connected probably with the specialized oviposition "technics" into the vaginae of leaves of Gramineae species, which is typical for the members of the tribe Apameini. It seems to be confined to the extremely dry and continental mountain semi-desert areas of the Eastern Pamir Mountains.