Bucculatrix subnitens Walsingham 1914

Bucculatrix subnitens Walsingham (Figs. 137, 137a.)
1914. Bucculatrix subnitens Walsingham, Biologia-Centrali-Americana, IV, Lepidoptera-Heterocera, p. 345, Fig. 2, PI. X. Type S, Teapa, Tabasco, Mexico [B.M.].
Face whitish, tuft brown centrally, whitish laterally ; eye-caps whitish, antennal stalk gray, with narrow darker annulations. Thorax and basal half of fore wing uniformly ocherous, except for a dark brown stripe along costa, broadening at basal fourth to form an oblique streak, concave outwardly ; in the middle of the disc, the ocherous color is produced as a narrow streak to twothirds the wing length, thus deeply indenting the reddish or dark brown and blackish outer half of the wing; just before middle of costa, a curved lustrous silvery streak ; at two-thirds of costa a triangular erect, or sometimes narrow and oblique silvery spot; at middle of dorsum, a large curved dark brown and black streak bearing black raised scales, its tip reaching just beyond the acute tip of the narrow ocherous streak through the middle of the wing ; this dark brown streak is bordered on each side by a patch of lustrous silvery scales extending to the fold ; a whitish spot at tornus a little distad of the second silvery costal spot; scales encircling the apex grayish ocherous, and black-tipped; just before apex on costa, a white spot mostly in the cilia, a similar less defined pale spot just below apex is connected to the costal white spot by two or three silvery white scales; some dark brown scales project into the cilia; cilia gray toward tornus. Hind wings and cilia fuscous, somewhat irrorated. Legs dark brown, tibial hairs of the hind legs pure white. Large latero-dorsal blackish spots on metathorax. Abdomen dark fuscous, anal scales whitish ocherous. Alar expanse 5 to 7 mm.
Female genitalia (figs. 137, 137a). Ovipositor lobes minutely spinulose between the setae ; anterior half of segment 8 strongly sclerotized, near the posterior lateral margin of this sclerotized eighth sternite. a cluster of setae ; a lateral pair of elongate pockets on the intersegmental membrane indenting segment 8, and bearing dark-pigmented specialized scales ; ductus bursae opening into broad heart-shaped depression, sclerotized to the middle of segment 7, inception of ductus seminalis at the junction of this sclerotized section with the long membranous anterior section ; the small bursa copulatrix at the anterior end of the abdomen and strongly constricted by the signum. ribs of signum so closely placed that the spines of one rib overlap the adjacent one; spines acute, an occasional broader and larger spine (fig. 137a).
Specimen examined. — 1 2 .
Arizona: Madera Canyon, 4880 feet, Santa Rita Mountains, 1 9 , 30 June, 1959 (R. W. Hodges) [Cornell U.].
Food plant and early stages unknown, but without doubt the larva should be sought for on some Composite.
Walsingham does not mention the silvery spot on the basad side of the dorsal dark streak ; the incidence of light affects the distinctness of both of these spots. On the single Arizona specimen, I do not find a silvery white spot on the thorax, but the tips of the tegulae are somewhat paler than the remainder of the thorax. The wing expanse of the male type ( 5 mm. ) is considerably less than that of the Arizona female specimen ( 7 mm. ).
This very distinct species can be recognized by wing color and markings.
Both by genitalia and wing marks, B. sitbniteiis is allied to B. sexnotata Braun and B. speciosa new species; the wing marks are placed as in these species; it further agrees with scxiwtata in the silvery luster of the pale marks.
Although the type locality of B. subiiitcus is 1500 or more miles from Arizona, there seems to be no doubt of the identification.

Bucculatrix subnitens is a moth in the family Bucculatricidae. It is found in North America, where it has been recorded from Arizona. The species was described by Thomas de Grey, 6th Baron Walsingham in 1914.