Thiotricha tetraphala

Thiotricha tetraphala is a species of moth in the family Gelechiidae. It was described by Edward Meyrick in 1885.^[1] It is endemic to New Zealand.^[3]

Thiotricha tetraphala
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Gelechiidae
Genus:	Thiotricha
Species:	T. tetraphala
Binomial name
Thiotricha tetraphala (Meyrick, 1885)[1]
Synonyms[2]
Thistricha tetraphala Meyrick, 1885

Taxonomy

Illustration by George Hudson c. 1927

This species was first described by Edward Meyrick in 1885 and named Thistricha tetraphala.^[4][2] In 1886 Meyrick gave a fuller description and corrected the misspelling of the genus name to Thiotricha.^[5] The male holotype specimen, collected in Dunedin, is held at the Natural History Museum, London.^[2]

Description

The wingspan is about 12mm. The forewings are light grey, somewhat irrorated with grey-whitish in the disc. There are three dark grey spots, the first basal, the second triangular, in the disc before the middle, the third larger, oblong, beyond middle and resting on the sub-median fold. The hindwings are grey.^[5]