Asymphorodes sericeus Clarke 1986

Asymphorodes sericeus

Alar expanse 8–10 mm.

Labial palpus white; very slight darkening of third segment distad. Antenna buff; scape white. Head white. Thorax white; prominent, thornlike processes present from metascutum of male. Forewing ground color white; on fold, two ill-defined, small grayish spots; beyond these, two similar spots toward costa; on tornus a large, ill-defined grayish blotch; cilia grayish at tornus, yellowish along termen. Hindwing gray; cilia somewhat paler. Foreleg white; tibia edged with fuscous; tarsal segments fuscous on outer side; midleg and hindleg white. Abdomen fuscous dorsally, buff ventrally; 6th to 8th segments of male strongly modified (Figure 184 c–e).

Male genitalia slides USNM 24829, 24830. Harpe broad basally, very constricted at neck; neck very short; cucullus expanded. Tegumen about as long as broad. Aedeagus of about equal thickness throughout, curved; manica with a long, claviform process dorsally.

Female genitalia slides USNM 24831, 24832. Ostium small, round, emerging from a long tubular structure, the latter set in a deep median excavation of the posterior margin of the 7th sternum. Inception of ductus seminalis from posterior edge of bursa copulatrix. Ductus bursae membranous, arising at posterior end of bursa copulatrix. Bursa copulatrix mostly membranous, slightly rugose. Signa indicated by a pair of patches of small, thornlike, sclerotized points.

HOLOTYPE.—USNM 100799.

TYPE-LOCALITY.—Nuku Hiva, Tunoa Ridge, 2900 ft (884 m).

DISTRIBUTION.—Nuku Hiva.

FOOD PLANT.—Unknown.

Described from the holotype (23 Jan 1968), 18 and 61m; paratypes with identical data.

This species is variable, some specimens are immaculate (mostly females) and some are marked with several spots (Figure 304c–e). In using the term “white” in my description I do so with some reservation because the ground color is “off white,” but not buff, and the whole light surface presents a shining, silky aspect.

The segments of the male abdomen are strongly modified and suggest a relationship to circopis and acritopterus, new species, but sericeus exhibits none of the brown markings found in those two species.

Asymphorodes sericeus is a moth of the family Agonoxenidae. It was described by John Frederick Gates Clarke in 1986. It is found in French Polynesia.