New Species and Records of Diatraea Guilding and Zeadiatraea Box from Mexico, Central and South America (Lepid., Pyral.)

Records are given of the localities (with altitudes) of approximately 900 specimens representing 21 species of Diatraea Guild, and four species of Zeadiatraea Box, from Mexico, Central and South America. Most of the moths were reared from known food-plants (all Gramineae) and the larvae of several of them are important agricultural pests as stalk-borers in sugar-cane and maize.Three species of Diatraea are described as new to science and their genitalia are figured, viz., colombiana, sp.n. (Colombia), balboana, sp.n. (Panama) and veracruzana, sp.n. (Mexico). The previously unknown male of D. instructella Dyar (Mexico) is described and its genitalia figured. These moths (except colombiana) are illustrated in the Plate. An attempt is made to clarify the confusion which has existed concerning D. magnifactella Dyar and the closely related D. considerata Heinrich, both of which are endemic in Mexico, but each with its own area of distribution without overlapping. The paper includes additional records and observations on the polytypic D. busckella Dyar & Heinrich and certain of its subspecies in Panama and Venezuela, previously discussed by the writer in this journal in 1951.