Idaea nocturna species group

Diagnostic characters: Adults with dark ground coloration (especially in males) and diffuse wing pattern. Frons flat, brown. Male antennae with dentate or bipectinate flagellum. Male hindtibia without pencil, tarsus shortened, tarsomeres appearing as fused. Male genitalia with broad uncus and one stout cornutus in the aedeagus. Female genitalia with long ductus bursae, corpus bursae with spinules (‘lamina dentata’) and appendix bursae (cf. Hausmann 2020).

Genetic data (Fig. 1): In an analysis of the COI gene of all Idaea species worldwide, the nocturna species group belongs to a common cluster in a separate position to other representatives of Idaea (Hausmann 2020).

Idaea nocturna (Staudinger 1892) is distributed in the adjacent territories of the “Ferghana basin”: easternmost Uzbekistan (locus typicus), central and south-western Kyrgyzstan, possibly also Tadzhikistan.

Its sister species Idaea zoferata Kaila & Viidalepp, 1996 occurs at the northern edge of the Tian Shan mountain chain: northernmost Uzbekistan, northernmost Kyrgyzstan, south-eastern Kazakhstan (locus typicus). Idaea beata Hausmann, 2020 is, so far, only known from northern Israel (locus typicus), Idaea millesima Hausmann & Prochazka, 2020 only from Greece, southern Peloponnese peninsula (locus typicus).

Idaea medianocturna Hausmann, 2020 is distributed in south-eastern Turkey (locus typicus).

Further information on the morphology and genetic data of all members of this species-group see Hausmann (2020).