Introduction

Scythridid fauna of Spain is very well known. The last checklist of Scythrididae of Spanish mainland was made by VIVES MORENO (2014), and it comprises 91 species in total. After this publication, Scythris spiniferella Nupponen & Savenkov, 2019 and Enolmis delnoydella Groenen & Schreurs, 2016 were described on the basis of Spanish material (GROENEN & SCHREURS, 2016;NUPPONEN & SAVENKOV, 2019).

Scythris camelella Walshingham, 1907 was recorded on the wet habitats nothern of Santa Pola (Spain) during the joint trip of the second author and Marek Dvorák - collector of the present record. Only one male was atracted to ultraviolet light which was installed in the salt marshe with sparce vegetation, but with reeds in the close surroundings (Fig. 3). This locality is a part of great territory where wetlands and salt marshes belong to the common habitats. The well-preserved habitats south of Santa Pola are protected, e.g. El Parque Natural de las Lagunas de La Mata and Torrevieja, but the locality on which S. camelella was recorded has been always without territorial protection. This is why this locality practically does not exist in the present due the quick development in this densely populated area.

Figs 1-3
Scythris camelella Walshingham, 1907, Spain. 1. Adult, males. 2. Male genitalia. 3. Habitat of S. camelella near Santa Pola (Alicante) in Spain.

Material examined

Scythris camelella Walshingham, 1907 (Figs 1-2): SPAIN, Alicante, Santa Pola, 1 km south of Balsares, 50 m a.s.l., 1 ♂, 12-VI-2007 (gen. prep. 29390 Ig. Richter), M. Dvorák leg. (coll. Ig. Richter).

Discussion

Scythris camelella was described on the basis of five males collected in Biskra in Algeria (WALSINGHAM, 1907). It is widely distributed in the Palaearctic and Afrotropical regions, namely it was recorded in Egypt, Iran, Sudan, Tunisia (BENGTSSON, 1997), Jordan (NUPPONEN, 2005), Afghanistan, Jordan, Pakistan, Syria, South Africa, Namibia, Kenya and Yemen (NUPPONEN, 2018). The present record is the first one for Spain and for whole Europe.

The biology was not hitherto described despite one specimen from the type series was bred from a cocoon (WALSINGHAM, 1907). The type specimens were collected in April (WALSINGHAM, 1907), but the moths are active also in late autumn (BENGTSSON, 1997). With regard to the date of the present record (June), it probably occurrs in more broods from April to October. According to BENGTSSON (1997) S. camelella belongs to camelella species-group.

Acknowledgments

We are indebted to Mr. Marek Dvorák (Czech Republic) for giving us the opportunity to study the Spanish material collected by him, and Bengt Å. Bengtsson (Sweden) is thanked for the confirmation of the species identification. We are grateful to Emmanuel Arriaga-Varela (México) for the translation of abstract into Spanish and the improvement of English. The work of Jan Sumpich was financially supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic (DKRVO 2019-2023/5.I.b, National Museum, 00023272).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BENGTSSON, B. Å., 1997.– Scythrididae.– In P. HUEMER, O. KARSHOLT & L. LYNEBORG [eds.]. Microlepidopteraof Europe, 2: 301 pp. Apollo Books, Stenstrup.

GROENEN, F. & SCHREURS, A., 2016.– Enolmis delnoydella Groenen & Schreurs, sp. n., a new species from Spain (Lepidoptera: Scythrididae).– SHILAP Revista de lepidopterología, 44(173): 45-47.

NUPPONEN, K., 2005.– Notes on Palaearctic Scythrididae, with description of two new species (Lepidoptera: Scythrididae).– Entomologica Fennica, 16: 165-174.

NUPPONEN, K., 2018.– Notes on Scythrididae of western South Africa and Namibia, with descriptions of eight new species (Lepidoptera: Scythrididae).– Metamorphosis, 29: 56-78.

NUPPONEN, K. & SAVENKOV, N., 2019.– Descriptions of two new species of the family Scythrididae from Europe (Lepidoptera: Scythrididae).– SHILAP Revista de lepidopterología, 47(187): 469-474.

VIVES MORENO, A., 2014.– Catálogo sistemático y sinonímico de los Lepidoptera de la Península Ibérica, de Ceuta, de Melilla y de las islas Azores, Baleares, Canarias, Madeira y Salvajes: 1184 pp. Suplemento a SHILAP Revista de lepidopterología, Improitalia, Madrid.

WALSINGHAM, L., 1907.– Algerian Microlepidoptera.– The Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine, 43: 6-10.

Author notes

*Autor para correspondencia / Corrresponding author jansumpich@seznam.cz