Eupithecia cooptata Dietze, 1904

Eupithecia cooptata Dietze, 1904 View in CoL

Notes

Two specimens were collected from Ait Ouiksane Village and subjected to barcoding. One male specimen, its genitalia and 8 th sternite are shown in Fig. 4. As summarised by Ratzel (2018), the identity of the Moroccan population of E. cooptata is still doubtful. He described a series of moths from High Atlas as E. cooptata ssp. steineri Ratzel, 2018 , but noted that its status is not sure and requires further study. Our two specimens were badly damaged in the bait trap and the abdomen was available for only one male. Genitalia dissection proved that this individual is, indeed, conspecific with E. cooptata steineri . Interestingly, according to the barcodes, our Moroccan specimens are rather different (p-distance 0.0264) from the European sample (n = 1) of E. cooptata in the public data portal of Barcode of Life Data Systems (http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php) (referred to as BOLD hereinafter), thus supporting Ratzel’s view that this taxon may even be a distinct species. With just two damaged specimens in our possession, we could not perform a taxonomic rearrangement, but just stress the need for further study.

Ratzel (2018) noted that the type material of E. cooptata steineri originated from a rather restricted area in the western part of the High Atlas Mountains. Our data increase the range of this taxon significantly, as Ait Ouiksane is located approximately 50 km southwest of the known localities of E. cooptata steineri . Moreover, two more specimens in the BOLD (BC ZSM Lep 97868 from Igmir in the Anti Atlas and BC ZSM Lep 97891 from Ait Tamil in High Atlas) also have DNA barcodes identical or very similar (p-distance 0.0015) to our moths, suggesting that these specimens, currently identified as E. farinosa (Dietze, 1913) , are actually also conspecific with E. cooptata steineri , thus further increasing the known range of this species in Morocco.

As recently summarised by Ratzel (2018), E. farinosa is a form of E. scopariata (Rambur, 1833) . It was described from Spain and, only subsequently, some African specimens have been associated with the name E. farinosa (for details, see Ratzel (2018)). As E. scopariata has exclusively European distribution ( Mironov 2003, Leraut 2009) and is genetically very far (average p-distance 0.082 ± 0.001 SD) from our E. cooptata steineri sample, it is obvious that individuals named as E. farinosa in the BOLD database have been misidentified. In conclusion, we suggest omitting E. farinosa from the list of Moroccan Lepidoptera .