Bucculatrix recognita Braun 1963

Bucculatrix recognita new species (Figs. 204. 204a, 205, 205a, 206.)
1923. Bucculatrix litigiosclla Forbes (not Zeller), Mem. 68, Cornell Univ. Agric. Exp. Sta., p. 157.
Head creamy white, tuft with a greater or less admixture of ocherous or dark brown hairs; eye-caps creamy white, conspicuously dotted with browntipped scales, antennal stalk annulate, each segment shading from pale buff through brownish ocherous to dark brown at tip, and an occasional paler segment near apex of antenna, antennal notch deep. Thorax including tegulae pale yellow, conspicuously dotted with brown-tipped scales or sometimes minutely dark-dotted. Fore wings yellow to orange-ocherous (sometimes cream-colored), the scales more or less broadly tipped with dark brown, thus producing in darker specimens the appearance of a brownish dusted or irrorated ground color; the pale markings are formed by streaks of the pale ground color, which are however sometimes slightly dusted ; three very oblique parallel pale costal streaks extend to the middle of the wing, the first at basal fifth is narrowly separated from the costa by the dusted ground color, the third is the best defined, the scales at its inner margin more deeply brown-tipped; a short oblique streak from dorsum, often ill-defined or its position indicated only by the dark-tipped scales margining it toward base, meets the third costal streak at an acute angle (about 60°) ; a patch of black raised scales just within the middle of the dorsal margin followed by scattered black-tipped scales, some of which are raised; apical area sometimes less dusted by dark-tipped scales, thus contrasting ; just before apex a whitish triangular spot partly in the cilia; a small irregular black apical spot from which a faint line of dark-tipped scales extends along termen, both spot and line sometimes lacking; a second more conspicuous line in the middle of the whitish cilia curves around apex from the whitish triangular spot to tornus. Hind wings and cilia yellowish white to pale silvery gray. Legs pale yellow, the white hind tarsal segments black-tipped. Abdomen whitish, with faint fuscous shading.
Alar expanse 6 to 7.5 mm.
Male genitalia (figs. 204, 204a). Harpes typical of the section, truncate, setose outwardly : socii rounded, incurved and bent ventrad, with long setae ; anellus not differentiated as a definitive structure, but the membrane minutely
setose ; aedeagus long, stout, abruptly curving to apex, aperture margined laterally by toothed flaps, teeth varying in number; cornuti, a group of three strong teeth ; vinculum with anterior lobe. Scale sac absent.
Female genitalia (figs. 205, 205a, 206). Posterior margins of segment 7 fringed with long pointed specialized scales ; a sclerotized band across the posterior dorsal margin of ostium, curving around ostium and terminating in two points, sclerotization prolonged posteriorly into a two-lobed process ; ostium and ductus bursae in segment 7 strongly sclerotized, margin of ostium and ductus bursae immediately before ostium armed with teeth ; signum ribs strongly sclerotized and bearing short appressed teeth, between the ribs lines of fine teeth, anterior to these, groups of microscopic teeth, arranged in more or less transverse rows (fig. 205a ).
Type. — S , with cocoon, Ottawa, Ontario, 5. VII. 1955, " Quercus macrocarpa " (G. G. Lewis) [C.N.Coll., Type No. 7198].
Allotype.— 2, Ottawa, Ontario, July 23, 1934 (C. H. Young) [C.N.Coll., Type No. 7198].
Paratypes.— l 6.19. with cocoons, Ottawa, Ontario, 8. VII, 10.VII.1955, "Quercus macrocarpa" (G. G. Lewis) [C.N.Coll.]; 1 2, Toronto, Ontario, 25.5.15 [Cornell U.] ; 1 S. Cohasset, Massachusetts, June 8.07 (Owen Bryant Collector) [J. R. Eyer Coll.] ; 1 2, Waltham, Massachusetts, Sept. 22 (Morgan Hebard) [A.N.S.P.] ; 1 2, with cocoon on fragment of oak leaf, Kirkwood, Missouri (probably), " Bucculatrix on oak," 4/23.85 (284), " From Miss Murtfeldt " [U.S.N.M.] ; 1 2 , no locality, but probably Missouri, " on white oak," 8/2.86, cocoon accompanying (Murtfeldt Coll.) [Cornell U.] ; 1 $. Essex Co., N. J., V.24 (W. D. Kearfott) [U.S.N.M.] ; 1 $, with cocoons on fragments of oak leaves, Washington, D. C, "AB114, iss. July 29-9" [U.S.N.M.] ; 13 $ , 18 2 , Highlands, Macon Co., North Carolina, 3865 feet, August 3 to September 3, 1958, collected as part of a project sponsored by the American Philosophical Society (R. W. Hodges) [Cornell U.] ; 3 <5 , 6 2, Cherry Hill Recreation Area, Rte. 107, Oconee Co., South Carolina, 2000 feet, August 11 to September 6, 1958, collected as part of a project sponsored by the American Philosophical Society (R. W. Hodges) [Cornell U.].
The food plant of the Ottawa series is Quercus macrocarpa Michx. ; where this oak is not native, other species of the white oak group replace it as a food plant. There are no data on the mining stages. The cocoon is pale yellow, with eight or nine ridges ; except for the fewer ridges and pale yellow color, it resembles that of B. packardella Chambers.
When the ground color of the fore wings is a bright yellow or orange-ocherous, and the pale markings are distinctly yellow, the species can be recognized easily. Specimens in which the clear yellow of ground color and markings is obscured by dark dusting, if merely slightly abraded in the basal area of the wing, can scarcely be differentiated from packardella, except by genitalia.
Genitalia slides of type and allotype, and slides of the Missouri, Washington, D. C, North Carolina, and Cohasset, Massachusetts specimens demonstrate the specific identity of the series. The unusual genitalia separate this widely distributed species from all others.
It is understandable that this species should have been identified as litigiosella Zeller, as Zeller's description of litigiosella agrees with the more densely dusted specimens of recognita. The genitalia of the two species are quite different. The specimen labeled litigiosella by Forbes and referred to on page 157 of Memoir 68, Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station is the specimen from the Murtfeldt Collection reared on white oak (probably from Missouri) ; it is included among the paratypes of recognita.

Bucculatrix recognita is a moth in the family Bucculatricidae. It was described by Annette Frances Braun in 1963 and is found in North America, where it has been recorded from Ontario, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., North Carolina and South Carolina.

The wingspan is 6-7.5 mm. The forewings are yellow to orange-ocherous, the scales tipped with dark brown. The hindwings are yellowish white to pale silvery grey. Adults have been recorded on wing from August to October.

The larvae feed on Quercus macrocarpa. They mine the leaves of their host plant. Pupation takes place in a pale yellow cocoon.