Carmenta commoni Duckworth 1974

Carmenta commoni

MALE—Head with vertex brown-black; occipital fringe yellow with brown-black mixed dorsally; antennae (broken) brown-black, scape yellow ventrally; front brown-black, white laterally; labial palpus smooth, yellow with brown-black apically Thorax brown-black with narrow subdorsal yellow stripes; large yellow spot beneath wings extending more narrowly to collar; metathorax with yellow spot dorsomedially, lateral tufts yellow Abdomen dorsally brown-black with pale yellow or white band on posterior one-half of segment 4 and narrowly on posterior margin of segment 7; ventrally brown-black; anal tuft somewhat wedge-shaped with sides turned downward, yellow-orange dorsally and ventrally, and brown-black laterally Legs mostly brown-black with yellow on forecoxa, on ventral margin of femora, and on most of tibiae (hindlegs missing) Forewing with vein R2 missing; mostly hyaline; margins, veins, and discal spot brown-black with some yellow powdered between veins on apical margin; ventrally with more yellow on apical margin, and yellow on costal margin, distal edge of discal spot and at wing base Hindwing hyaline; very narrow margins, tiny triangular discal spot and veins brown-black; fringe yellow at wing base; ventrally with yellow on costal margin Wing length of male, 85 mm Male genitalia (Figure 17) with saccular ridge of valva broadly expanded, clothed with long spinelike simple scales, apically downcurved to ventral margin on which scales much shorter, then divided with one portion of ridge projected basad, other portion projected distad and without out scales, both latter portions of ridge being parallel to ventral edge of valva; saccus more than one-third length of valva; gnathos with ventromedial plate expanded laterally; aedeagus with twelve or more minute cornuti on vesica

FEMALE—Unknown

TYPE—Holotype: Male in the British Museum (Natural History): “Holotype”; “Type”; “Toowoomba, Brisbane distr”; “Asynedon brisbanica Le Cf, Holotype, F LE CERF det” [manuscript name]; “Tring Ms 406”; “Rothschild Bequest BM 1939–1”; “Genitalia Slide By T D Eichlin, USNM 76155 ”; “Holotype , Carmenta commoni Duckworth & Eichlin, 1973” (male)

TYPE-LOCALITY—Toowoomba, Queensland

HOST-PLANT—Unknown

DISCUSSION—This species is known only from the unique male type Its placement in the genus Carmenta is somewhat tentative and will need to be verified through an examination of the female genitalia The male genitalia, while exhibiting some characters of typical Carmenta species, have some structures similar to certain species of Synanthedon, these species having been heretofore placed in the genus Thamnosphecia Spuler The loss of vein R2 on the forewing is also characteristic of a few species of Carmenta from North America We take pleasure in dedicating this species to Dr I F B Common, Division of Entomology, CSIRO, Canberra, Australia