PROCEEDINGS OF THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



issued |i;|\X^H by the 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Vol.86 Washington: 1939 



No. 3064 



RESTRICTION OF THE GENUS GELECHIA (LEPIDOP- 

 TERA: GELECHIIDAE), WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF NEW 

 GENERA 



By August Busck 



The genus Gelechm Hiibiier/ type G. rhomhella (Schiffermiiller), 

 has become, in the course of years since its erection, a "wastebasket" ^ 

 for hundreds of heterogeneous species of gelechiids that could not 

 readily be assigned to other genera on wing or palpal characters. The 

 result is an aggregation of more than 400 such species under the 

 generic name Gelechia. Quite aside from the inconvenience of such 

 an unwieldy number of species in one genus, it is apparent that this 

 lumping does not represent a natural grouping, but that many of the 

 included species are less related to their associates in the check lists 

 under that genus than they are to the species placed in other genera. 

 Gnorimoschema Busck {Phthorimaea Meyrick), for example, which 

 has been correctly separated for many years on obvious pterogostic 

 and oral characters, is clearly more closely related to Gelechia proper 

 than most of the genera here eliminated from the concept. For this 

 reason it is included in the synoptic tables in this paper, and figures 

 of the genitalia are given for comparison (pi. 68, fig. 2; pi. 65, fig. 36). 



Several sound attempts have been made by workers in continental 

 Europe, notably Heinemann,^ to make a more natural classification 

 by the erection of separate genera for species with certain slight modi- 

 fications of wing structure and palpal characters in common, but the 



1 Verzeichniss bekannter Schmetterlinge, p. 415, 1816. 



=> As early as 1872 V. T. Chambers commented on "the elastic limits of that accommo- 

 dating genus Oelechia, the microlepidopterlsts' waste-paper box," Can. But., vol. 4, p. 14T, 

 1872. 



s Schmetterlinge Deutschlands und der Schwelz, 1870. 



126129—39 1 



