Abstract

Over the last 100 years, specimens of an undescribed species of the tortricid subtribe Cochylina have accumulated in Lepidoptera collections of several institutions across the U.S.A. The generic assignment of the species has been elusive. Carl Heinrich (U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Museum of Natural History) (ca. 1942) labeled a series from Oregon as “Carolella” Busck, a replacement name for the preoccupied Pharmacis Hübner; Carolella subsequently was synonymized with Eugnosta Hübner [1825] 1816 by Razowski (2011). However, on genitalia slide labels, Heinrich (ca. 1942) indicated “Phalonia (?) sp.”; he also labeled a series of putative conspecifics from Colombia as “Phalonia sp.?”. Curiously, the labels do not seem to be written by the same person, even though they both indicate “C.H.” [Carl Heinrich]. Twenty-five years later (ca. 1967), John F. Gates Clarke (National Museum of Natural History) also identified the species as “Carolella sp?”. Based on current generic concepts in Cochylina (Brown et al. 2020), a convincing generic assignment for the species remains somewhat enigmatic, with features of the facies suggesting an affinity with Henricus Busck, and features of the male genitalia indicating a relationship with Phalonidia Le Marchand or Platphalonidia Razowski. In addition to the uncertain generic assignment of the new species, perhaps its most puzzling aspect is its occurrence in Oregon, California, and Arizona, U.S.A., and Colombia, South America. Added to this are host records from three unrelated plant families: Garryaceae, Ericaceae, and Amaranthaceae. The purpose of this con¬tribution is to describe and illustrate this new species, present data on its larval host plants, and explore potential hypotheses for its unusual geographic distribution.

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