With few exceptions, Archipini in the Caribbean are restricted to mid- to high elevations (excluding the Mictopsichia group). This habitat preference, combined with the topographic complexity of the Caribbean islands, has driven high levels of endemism and surprisingly high levels of species richness for such a small geographic area. On Hispaniola, for example, there are four disjunct mountain ranges, with some peaks around 2000 m in elevation. The intervening valleys provide extreme topographic relief; e.g., the Hoya de Enriquillo valley between the Sierra de Bahoruco and the Sierra de Neiba has several points below sea level. This serves to create several smaller “islands” on Hispaniola itself, with the intervening “seas” (i.e., the valleys) inhospitable to montane archipine species. The majority of Caribbean archipine species are restricted to a single mountain range, and in some cases, to a single peak or series of closely situated peaks, raising questions about their conservation prospects. Of the non-Mictopsichia group of archipines, only five have been recorded from coastal elevations, and five are known from more than one island or archipelago.
The islands of the Caribbean provide an excellent realm in which to study insect biogeography, as demonstrated by the attention it has received from entomologists (see Liebherr 1988). Unfortunately, only rarely have Caribbean microlepidoptera been examined (Davis 1975; Heppner 1985; St. Laurent & McCabe 2016).
There exist no comprehensive Caribbean-centric revisions for any tortricid groups. Recent papers have begun to shed light on Caribbean tortricid diversity, but these have all been part of broader, Neotropical generic revisions (Razowski and Becker 2000b; Adamski and Brown 2001; Brown and Brown 2004; Phillips-Rodriguez and Powell 2007; Brown 2008; Razowski and Brown 2008; Brown 2009; Razowski and Becker 2010; Brown et al. 2018), isolated taxonomic treatments (Matthews et al. 2012, 2019; Brown et al. 2018; Gilligan et al. 2018; Austin et al. 2019), or faunal inventories of the Lepidoptera in general (Núñez-Aguila & Barro-Cañamero 2012; Perez-Gelabert 2020). The present paper represents the first comprehensive taxonomic revision of a Caribbean tortricid tribe.
Materials and methods
Dissection methods follow Landry (2007); however, for some dissections slide-mounting was delayed to allow lateral imaging of the male genitalia. Genitalia and abdomens, when not permanently slide mounted, are preserved in glycerol-filled microvials pinned beneath the specimen. Genitalia were stained with a combination of Eosin Y and chlorazol black. Forewing length (FWL) was measured in a straight line from the base of the costa to the apex including the fringe to the nearest half-millimeter.
Images of adults and genitalia were captured using a Macroscopic Solutions Macropod Pro and Canon EOS 6D DSLR camera body using the Macro Photo MP-E 65 mm f/2.8 1–5× manual focus lens for EOS or EF 70–200 mm zoom lens with 10× or 20× Mitutoyo objective lenses for genitalia. Images were stacked as needed using Zerene Stacking Software Version 1.04 (Zerene Systems, LLC 2014). Figures were manipulated with Adobe Photoshop CC (2018). Maps were created with SimpleMappr
