Boros István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 5. (Budapest 1954)

Gozmány, L.: Studies on Microlepidoptera

Studies on Microlepidoptera By L. A. Gozmány, Budapest In 1913, Rebel described Cnephasia wertheimsteini (Rov. Lap. 1913, and Verh. zool.

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bot. Ges. Wien, 53, p. 5—7) on the ground of four males and three female specimens, caught in the Great Hungarian Plains and the Deliblat sand hills. The Museum of Natural History of Hungary possesses one female specimen of this rare moth caught in Kiskunhalas (the Great Plains), 17. Sept. 1939, leg. S z e n t-I v á n y. Its collector compared it with the type specimens in Vienna, so, though it is a rather worn female specimen, there is no doubt that it belongs to wertheimsteini Rbl. I have also examined this moth, having some doubts regarding its status in the group of species comprising the genera Nephodesme Hbn., Cnephasia Curt., and Cnephasiella Adamczewski, so fitfully revised by this latter author in 1936 (Ann. Zool. Mus. Pol. 77. p.

263—294). The result was that wertheimsteini Rbl., far from being a cnephasid species, belongs to a new genus near Oxypteron Staudinger. Among Tortricidae s. str. there are only two genera in the Palearctical region which lack vein M

2 in the hindwings : Oxypteron Stgr., and Tortricodes Gn.Now, apart from other considerations, wertheimsteini Rbl. lacks the secondary cell of the forewings, characteristical to Tortricodes Gn. ; its wings are also more pointed, with termen on both wings not so sinuous as oval. Staudinger, in his description of Oxypteron (Berk ent. Zeit. 1870, p. 276) says, as part of its characterization, that in the hindwings vein IV

2 originates from the lower cell vein at 2/3, and that veins II and 11^ are on a short stalk. К e n n e l's description (p. 226) says that »Ader IV

2 entspringt aus der hinteren Mittelader weit saumwärts«, and that »Ader II und Tili entspringen getrennt, aber sehr nahe beisammen aus der forderen, etwas vorgezogenen Ecke der Mittelzelle.

..« My impar specimens, which are topotypical, originating from Sarepta and caught or bred by Christoph in 1865 (»coli. Z e 11 e r, coll. Walsingham, received in exchange from the British Museum«) agree much better with the above characterization than with that of S t a u d i ng e r's. (There is also a curious vein-formation on the right forewing of my male specimen : veins 1

1ц 2 are on a rather long stalk! — the left wing is normal.) Amsel, in his study on the Mediterranean Tortricodes-specks (Bull. Soc. Fouad I

er Entom., 32, 1948, p. 299—303) gives a detailed account of the species belonging to Oxypteron, rectifying also the erroneous conceptions of both Staudinge t and Kennel in that not vein M

3 but M

2 of the hindwings are absent in this genus. Now, in wertheimsteini Rbl., veins RR + Щ of the hindwings are stalked, M

2 far from Cu

1} and — on the forewings — Cu

2 originates almost at the middle of under cell vein. In the copulatory organs the chief