Tigava pulchella Champion, 1897

Tigava pulchella Champion, 1897: 32.

MATERIAL EXAMINED. — Argentina. Province of Jujuy, Calilegua, 4.VI.2007, Guilbert & Montemayor coll., 1 ♂ (MNHN). — Province of Salta, Cerca Orán, Ruta de San Andrés, 5.VI.2007, Guilbert & Montemayor coll., 3 ♂♂, 4 ♀♀, 5 instars V (MLP).

DISTRIBUTION. — Cuba, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico.

This species is here newly recorded for Argentina from Jujuy. It is quite surprising to find this species in Argentina, as until now it was known only from Cuba, Mexico and Central America. The other members of the genus are widely distributed in Central and South America, suggesting that the large distributional gap of T. pulchella is a consequence of inadequate fieldwork. The only other species of Tigava recorded from Argentina is T. bombacis Drake & Poor, 1938, found in Salta (Tartagal). These specimens were collected on Chorisia sp.

HOST PLANTS. — Solanum torvum Sw. (Solanaceae) (Drake & Bruner 1924: 146), Chorisia spp. (Bombacaceae) is a new record.

DESCRIPTION OF LARVA (FIG. 8)

Body yellowish brown except for a pair of dark brown, Y-shaped stripes at the margins of the pronotum converging medially at the posterior process into one stripe running along the mid-line of abdominal tergites; shiny, glabrous. Body length (without tubercles) 2.36 mm; width 0. 74 mm (Fig. 8).

Head triangular, medially with a slender furrow, armed with three simple tubercles, a long, erect, slender median tubercle and a long, erect, robust occipital pair with scattered setae.

Pronotum wider than long, with a small, longitudinal, median, keel; armed with a pair of divergent tubercles at middle across keel; the antero-median lateral margins armed with short, scattered, tubercles, posterior margins armed with a long, simple, tubercle.

Wing pad lateral margin armed with scattered, short tubercles; mesonotum with a pair of long, divergent, simple tubercles.

Metanotum with a pair of long, divergent, simple tubercles.

Abdominal tergites more slender than wing pads; fourth to ninth with a long simple tubercle on each side; first tergum with a pair of very short tubercles, second, fifth, sixth and eighth terga with a median tubercle.

REMARKS

This is the first larva described for the genus.The fifth instars of Tigava pulchella, and probably of the other members of the genus, are nearly as long and slender as the adult and have only simple tubercles.