A new species of Auratonota (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae: Chlidanotinae) formerly confused with A. hydrogramma (Meyrick)

Auratonota pharata, new species, is described and illustrated from Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela, and French Guiana. The species is most similar to A. hydrogramma (Meyrick), with which it formerly was confused. It can be distinguished superficially from the latter by the absence of the narrow pale curved band beyond the distal end of the discal cell of the forewing. The male genitalia of the new species differ by a slightly expanded, dorsally convex, and ventrally flattened distal portion of the uncus. The female genitalia possess numerous short curved bands of 5–6 microtrichia around a larger single seta set in a shallow pit on the surface of the middle of the papillae anales compared with the more semicircular bands of microtrichia nearly surrounding the seta in A. hydrogramma. A survey of wing coupling in numerous genera of Chlidanotini and Hilarographini revealed that the female frenulum consists of two bristles usually separated throughout their length in all representatives examined in these two tribes; three bristles are present in females of most other Tortricidae. This character state represents an additional putative synapomorphy uniting those two tribes.