Subfamily OLETHREUTINAE

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Introduction

Horak, M. 2006. Olethreutine Moths of Australia (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae). SCIRO: 1-552:
'The Tortricidae, the sole family in the superfamily Tortricoidea, have just over 9000 described species (Brown 2005) and are the second largest lineage in the microlepidoptera, second only to the Gelechioidea. They belong to the Ditrysia, the higher Lepidoptera comprising over 95% of all species and defined by a separate copulatory orifice and ovipore in the female, the two internally connected for sperm transfer. Together with the Galacticoidea, Zygaenoidea, Cossoidea, Sesioidea, Choreutoidea, Urodoidea, Schreckensteinioidea, Epermenioidea, Alucitoidea and Pterophoroidea, they form the Apoditrysia (Kristensen and Skalski 1998), based on the structure of the second abdominal sternum with 'tortricoid' apodemes and produced anterolateral corners. However, it is not confirmed that the Apoditrysia are a cohesive, monophyletic group, and with the Tortricoidea by far their largest superfamily the assemblage is often referred to as the 'tortricoid' grade.
The tortricids are a well-defined family easily recognisable by a combination of characters. Adult tortricids are mostly small to medium-sized moths folding their wings roof-like above the body at rest, sometimes nearly flat in some Tortricinae. In many Eucosmini the folded wings are longitudinally bent at a right angle so that the cross section of a sitting adult is rectangular. The tortricid frons scaling is characteristic with a large, downcurved tuft just beneath the antennae but with the rest of the frons scaling very short, appressed and upwardly oriented. The labial palpi are relatively stout, either porrect and sinuate or gently upcurved, but never with a long, slender and tapering terminal segment. The proboscis never has scales at its base, and the maxillary palpi are small and usually not visible on the undissected head. Ocellus and chaetosema are nearly always present, and the antenna has a basal notch in the males of some groups. The thorax often has a posterior, dorsal tuft of raised scales, and in the male especially the hind tibia may be modified, in particular with a scale pencil from its base in many Olethreutinae. The flat ovipositor lobes of the female are unmistakable and characteristic for the family.
A division into three subfamilies has become generally accepted for the Tortricidae (Horak 1998), with reliable derived characters defining both the Chlidanotinae and the Olethreutinae. The Tortricinae are a collection of ancestral as well as derived groups, and the two other subfamilies are presumably derived from within this assemblage. The Olethreutinae are characterised by two unique derived character states: 1, fusion of juxta and caulis in the male genitalia into a single functional unit, and 2, reduction of the antennal scaling to one ring of scales per segment (from two rings in other Tortricidae). Many other features, often present in various combinations, produce the usually characteristic 'olethreutine look'. Among these are typical wing pattern elements such as the costal strigulae and ocelloid patch, costal fold and antennal notch in some groups, cubital pecten on the hindwing, scale pencil on the male hind tibia, and several character states of the genitalia in both sexes.
The book provides an overview and key to the 90 olethreutine genera occurring in Australia, represented by 249 named and about 200 unnamed Australian species. Each genus is described in detail, diagnosed and defined by unique, derived characters, and its relationships are discussed. A special effort has been made to provide copious illustrations of high quality of adults, heads, genitalia and other diagnostic structures. Whenever possible more than one species was illustrated to convey generic concepts and allow identification of common or pest species. Literature, biology and distribution are reviewed for each genus, and a checklist of all Australian species is given. This study is based on the named Australian Olethreutinae wherever possible; new species are only described if no named species was available or if a species added significantly to the generic concept. Several more olethreutine genera are known to be present in Australia, but most are represented by insufficient material to allow description.
This book follows the pattern of several earlier volumes in the series by providing a 'top-down' approach (Robinson and Nielsen 1989), primarily addressing the generic level and refraining from resolving difficult species-groups. A sound generic framework based on demonstrably monophyletic and thus unambiguously definable genera will enable efficient species-level studies as demand arises. The current study also shows that congeneric species very often have similar biology and host preferences. This means that information about the biology of just one species provides a hypothesis for the biology of its congeners, as long as the genus is a monophyletic grouping.
It would not have been possible to complete this volume without Furumi Komai's willingness to be first author of the Grapholitini chapter. Only his knowledge, expertise and long involvement with this extremely difficult group made it possible to deal with the surprising diversity of the Australian fauna. The chapter in this book is based on a comprehensive species-level revision of the Australian Grapholitini that will be published at a later date, including a large number of new species.
Conforming to Nielsen et al. (1996), this revision covers the fauna of continental Australia and Tasmania and includes islands close to the mainland. Distant islands under Australian control such as Ashmore Reef, Cocos-Keeling Is, Christmas I., Macquarie I., Lord Howe I. and Norfolk I. are not included.
The Australian Olethreutinae are probably all derived from incursions from the Oriental and Papuan region and can only be understood in the context of this fauna. Many of the genera described from Indonesia, New Guinea and the Pacific region were regarded in isolation and earlier Australian names were ignored. Some were based on very little and often damaged material, even on only one sex, and it was impossible to form an adequate generic concept. Long series of both sexes are available in the ANIC for many Australian species allowing characterisation of some previously dubious genera and understanding of their relationships. Comparison of genera across the Oriental and Australian regions has led to several synonymies and numerous recombinations of non-Australian species.
The earliest olethreutines to be described from Australia were included in Francis Walker's List of the Specimens of Lepidopterous Insects in the Collection of the British Museum, published in instalments during the middle of the 19th century. The first publication entirely dedicated to the Olethreutinae was in 1881 by Edward Meyrick, who lived in Australia and New Zealand from 1877 to 1886, teaching classics (Robinson and Nielsen 1989) in Sydney, Parramatta and Christchurch. During his stay he accumulated a large collection of Australian and New Zealand microlepidoptera that he took back to Britain on his return, and that is now in The Natural History Museum, London. In a long series of papers from 1895 to 1920, O. B. Lower gradually added new species and genera to the known Australian olethreutine fauna. In 1911, long after his return to London, Meyrick revisited the Australian Olethreutinae and once again produced a comprehensive, updated revision of the subfamily.
The second author to contribute greatly to the knowledge of the Australian Olethreutinae is Alfred Jefferis Turner. Turner was a highly regarded medical doctor, yet managed to publish over one hundred papers on Lepidoptera (Mackerras 1949), describing many new species from subtropical and tropical regions hardly collected during Meyrick's times. He accepted Meyrick's classification for the Olethreutinae but gradually added numerous new taxa, usually in papers dealing with several families or a local fauna. Late in life, Turner (1946) published an entire paper devoted to the Olethreutinae in which he described a large number of new taxa, including, uncharacteristically, many synonyms.
The Olethreutinae have an estimated worldwide total of about 4300 named species (J. W. Brown personal communication). Our knowledge of the subfamily varies greatly between faunal regions. However, the recent publication of a World Catalogue of the Tortricidae (Brown 2005) has closed a large gap in our knowledge as there was no previous checklist for the Oriental region. The Holarctic region is well documented: with the still very relevant revision of the Nearctic fauna by Heinrich (1926); Miller's (1987) 'Guide to the Olethreutine Moths of midland North America'; Razowski's (1989) synopsis of the Palaearctic olethreutine genera, and his Tortricidae of Europe II (Olethreutinae) (Razowski 2003); Kuznetzov's (1987) revision of the fauna of the European part of the former USSR, and Kawabe's (1982) tortricid chapter in 'Moths of Japan'. Komai's (1999) revision of the Palaearctic genera of the Grapholita-group was an invaluable base for revision of the Australian Grapholitini.
There are no comprehensive treatments of the Olethreutinae of the Oriental region except for Liu and Li's (2002) tortricid volume, and Diakonoff's (1973) monumental monograph on the South Asiatic Olethreutini, that provided the key to the understanding of the Australian fauna. However, there is a wealth of information on Oriental Olethreutinae in innumerable publications, especially by Diakonoff, Kawabe and Bradley. Both Diakonoff's studies of the Olethreutinae of New Guinea and Clarke's monographs on the Polynesian and Micronesian fauna are crucial to the Australian fauna.
Both the Olethreutinae of the African and Neotropical regions still await revision. Diakonoff addressed the fauna of Madagascar in a series of papers of relevance to the Australian Olethreutinae, but information about Neotropical taxa has to be largely gleaned from Nearctic literature.'

Diagnosis References

Horak, M. 2006. Olethreutine Moths of Australia (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae). Canberra : CSIRO Vol. 10 522 pp. [57] (diagnosis; key to olethreutine genera based on Australian species (some genera for males only))

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