This species was described by Edward Meyrick in 1889 using a specimen he collected in the Waitakere Range in Auckland and named Gracilaria leucocyma.[2]George Hudson discussed this species under the name Parectopa laucocyma in his 1928 publication The Butterflies and Moths of New Zealand.[3] The specimen collected by Meyrick was the only recorded specimen until this species was rediscovered in 1954 by K. A. J. Wise.[4] In 1961 Lajos Vári restricted the genus Parectopa to Holarctic species which do not have genital characteristics that resemble New Zealand species. As a result, John S. Dugdale placed this species in the genus Acrocercops.[5] However the genus level classification of Acrocercops leucocyma is regarded as unsatisfactory and as such the species is currently also known as Acrocercops (s.l.) leucocyma.[1][6] The holotype specimen is held at the Natural History Museum, London.[5]
Description
Meyrick described this species as follows:
♀︎. 9mm. Head and palpi white. Antennae fuscous, beneath white. Thorax light grey. Abdomen whitish. Legs dark grey, ringed with white, posterior tibiae white. Fore-wings elongate, very narrow, pointed; grey; markings snow-white; a rather broad irregular streak along inner margin from base to apex, interrupted before middle by a very oblique indistinct line of ground-colour; eight short more or less wedge-shaped streaks from costa, first from 1⁄4, slenderly produced on costa towards base, first four outwardly oblique, remainder inwardly oblique, second and fourth reaching half across wing, the rest much shorter; a small irregular blackish apical dot, preceded by a white dot : cilia ochreous-grey-whitish, round apex whiter, with indications of two dark fuscous lines. Hindwings whitish-grey; cilia ochreous-grey-whitish.[2]
.jpg)
