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Digital Guide to Moth Identification

Gelechiidae
59a0789 – 1877   Xenolechia basistrigella (Zeller, 1873)
Distribution Data for Xenolechia basistrigella
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Distribution: Type locality: Texas; holotype (MCZ:Ent:2987) is housed in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard.
Description/
Field Marks:
Apparently similar to species in Pseudotelphusa.

"Carapace and head white-grey. antennae blackish and gray ringed, white-grey at the tip; Root segment blackish, whitish at the tip. palps longer than the ridge shield, curved; the second joint compressed, cylindrical, blackish outwards with two band-like black spots; the terminal segment more than half as long as the second segment, with broad black indentations in front of the middle and narrow in front of the apex. — Legs yellowish white; the four front ones blackish on the outside, mottled with whitish; the hind tibiae on the back with long, not very abundant blond hair, dark gray on the outside, with a whitish band-like spot each at the root, middle and end; the thorns blackish with white tips; the tarsi outwards blackish with whitish ends. (Abdomen missing.)

Forewings 2 1/2 ''' long, moderately narrow, hardly widened backwards, white, but appearing grey-white due to the fine, profuse, blackish pollination and purer white only in a few places. The shoulder has a blackish spot, and on at the root of the fold is a distinct black dot. Not far from the base is a rather strong, somewhat dentate, oblique outward transverse line, thickened above the fold, bounded outwards by pure ground color. Center is a nebulous, blackish costal spot, and below it a short, somewhat oblique, black line. Behind the center lies a quadrangular, nebulous, blackish costal spot, communicating with the inner-angle nebula by the black colon of the transverse vein. A light one posterior transverse line is absent, but after a clearing the crotch is dusted with black up to the wing tip are black dots. The wreaths are very finely dusted with blackish on the larger half of the root, and this pollination is limited outwards by a fairly distinct line.

Hindwings as wide as forewings, with much elongated tip,light gray; the light fringes with a fine, yellowish basal line.

Underside of forewings grey, with blurred edges in costal fringesyellowish spots and with yellowish roots of the posterior fringes. On the hindwings the middle cell seems to be closed by a transverse vein." - Zeller (1873) (Google translation).
Similar Species:
  • Pinned specimens of related species. (Hint: select View by Region on the related species page.)
Synonymy: Gelechia basistrigella Zeller, 1873
References
  • Zeller. P.C., 1873. Beiträge zur Kenntniss der nordamericanischen Nachtfalter, besonders der Microlepidopteren. Verhandlungen der Kaiserlich-Königlichen Zoologisch-Botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien, 23: 270; pl. 4, fig. 23.
Xenolechia basistrigella
P. C. Zeller

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