Research Training ProgramSmithsonian
Institution
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 Ashley Cramer University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico John W. Brown, Ph.D. "The experience I have gained here has been important in helping me focus my interests in zoology and has helped prepare me for future research endeavors." |
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Three new species of Argyrotaenia from Mexico and southwestern United States related to A. ponera (Walsingham) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae)
ABSTRACT
With the exception of a single widespread Palaearctic (Europe and Asia) species of moth, the torticid genus Argyotaenia Stephens is restricted to the New World, with more than 60 described species ranging from Canada to Argentina. Field work over the past three to four decades has revealed a surprisingly large number of undescribed species in the New World tropics. Three new species of Argyotaenia related to A. ponera (Walsingham) are described and illustrated from Mexico and the southwestern United States: A. Coconinana Cramer & Brown, from Arizona and New Mexico; A. spinacallis Cramer & Brown, from Veracruz, Mexico; and A. unda Cramer & Brown, from Mexico, Mexico. The species are distinguished by facies (external physical appearance) and characteristics of both male and female genitalia. A dichotomous key and a hypothesis of phylogenetic relationships among the taxa were presented. Although the A. ponera group is most species-rich in Mexico, it is clearly temerate/boreal rather than tropical in origin, ranging from the southern Rocky Mountains (Arizona and New Mexico) through the Sierra Madre Occidental of western Mexico, southward at least to the states of Morelos, Puebla and Veracruz. The number of new species described herein underscores the considerable species-level taxonomic work that remains to be done in the New World south of the United States border.
This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation research Experience for Undergraduates in the Biological Sciences, award # DBI-9531331.