Amiota subtusradiata Duda 1934

Amiota subtusradiata Duda, 1934

Amiota alboguttata var. subtusradiata Duda, 1934: 32 (original description).

Amiota subtusradiata Duda, 1934: Wheeler, 1965: 761 (Nearctic catalog); Máca, 1980: 336 (description, genitalia figured, lectotype designated); Chen and Toda, 2001: 1540 (description); Bächli et al., 2004: 43 (description, genitalia figured); Brake and Bächli, 2008: 256 (world catalog).

Amiota quadrata Takada and Toda, 1981: 2 (type locality: Canada, Northwest Territories, Inuvik; deposited in Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan, EIHU).

Amiota subtusradiata subsp. quadrata Takada and Toda, 1981 (Toda et al. 1996; stat. nov., as subspecies of A. subtusradiata Duda).

TYPE MATERIAL: Lectotype as designated by Máca (1980): “ Finland: Tvärminne, without date, R. Frey lgt., Coll. Zool. Museum of the University Helsinki. This specimen, bearing a label with number 802, Duda’s determination label and a red label with the inscriptions ‘Holotypus’ (printed) and ‘unpublished’ (written).” Deposited in the Finnish Museum of Natural History, Helsinki (MZH).

DISTRIBUTION: This species has a Holarctic distribution and is known from Europe, Far East Russia, Korea, Siberia, and Northwest Territories, Canada (Brake and Bächli, 2008). Michigan is also cited as a locality (due to a series collected by G. Steyskal), but these specimens are of A. byersi.

COMMENTS: Takada and Toda (1981) described A. quadrata from specimens collected in the high arctic of Canada (Inuvik). This species was eventually considered to be a subspecies of A. subtusradiata (Toda et al., 1996). Regrettably, the entire type series was deposited in Hokkaido University rather than in the Canadian National Collection of Insects, Ottawa, which would have been a more convenient repository for restudy, and so remains unexamined for this revision. The figures of the male genitalia (Takada and Toda, 1981) complicate the comparison to the two new Nearctic species, and Toda et al. (1996) did not redescribe or refigure A. quadrata.

We adopt the treatment of A. subtusradiata Duda from Bächli et al. (2004), which recognizes one broadly distributed, Holarctic A. subtusradiata (with no subspecies). Based on the description and figures from Bächli et al. (2004), we conclude that A. byersi and A. tibialis are different species from A. subtusradiata. Other synonyms of A. subtusradiata are reported by Bächli et al. (2004) in Eastern Asia. Eventually it would be useful to examine the type series of A. quadrata, along with European specimens of A. subtusradiata. It is very interesting that any species of Amiota is found so far north (Inuvik is ~ 68.331193, -133.610240), which is surrounded by tundra. The only nonconifers in which these Amiota could be breeding would be willows (Salica-ceae). The holotype of A. quadrata was collected on traps baited with banana.