Species Telphusa perspicua - Hodges#1858.2

1858.2

Telphusa perspicua (Walsingham, 1897)

Gelechia perspicua Walsingham, 1897

(Adapted loosely from Walsingham’s original 1897 description(1).) Long upturned palpi dark with some pale banding; top of head typically pale gray; fresh specimens have four to five dorsal scale tufts on the thorax and forewings, these typically brown to blackish often mixed with white; wide dark oblique basal band on forewings usually very evident, highlighted distally by a white edge or white patch; median area with an irregular blackish to dark brown blotch; postmedian area with a spindle-shaped or triangular dark patch, pointed rearward; distal part of forewing patchy dark and light but usually with a pale patch at the anal angle including the fringe; fresh specimens can show irridescent green in several patches on the forewing, most prominently on the distal side of the oblique basal band.

North Carolina and Florida to central Texas; Panama (BugGuide, iNaturalist, SCAN). Type locality: Haiti.

Nearly year-round, with major flight period in April-June; almost certainly multi-brooded.

I (ASH) strongly suspect the species found in the Southeast US is undescribed, with true perspicua limited at most to the Caribbean and represented on iNaturalist by two images from the Dominican Republic.

Walsingham, Lord. 1897. Revision of the West-Indian Micro-Lepidoptera with descriptions of new species. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1897: 72–73(1)

SCAN