TRIBE HYPOPYRINI
View Image Gallery of Tribe Hypopyrini.

Hypopyra Guenée

Type species: vespertilio Fabricius, India.

Synonyms: Enmonodia Walker (type species hypopyroides Walker, India = pudens Walker contra Nye (1975) and Poole (1989); see taxonomic note under pudens); Maxula Walker (type species idonea Walker, India = unistrigata Guenée); Pyramarista Kirby (type species rufescens Kirby, Malawi).

Species of
Hypopyra are large and bear a slight resemblance to some Eupterote in their oblique postmedial forewing fasciae and generally crenate or zig-zag markings distal to these. However, the antennae are filiform and fasciculate rather than bipectinate, and males can have massive and dense scale tufts on the legs and along the hindwing dorsum (e.g. pudens Walker). The patagia form a dark collar, but the moths are elsewhere a medium reddish brown to fawn, or mauvish grey. The underside is more sharply, narrowly and extensively fasciated and usually more brightly coloured in dull yellow through to red, a colour that can extend around the sides and to the apex of the abdomen. The forewing reniform is represented by two dark dots arranged transversely, but between this and the postmedial there can be a patch or several patches of black, the extent and shape of which varies within species as much as between them.

The male abdomen has the eighth segment unmodified, though the sternite may be shallowly bilobed posteriorly and gently convex anteriorly. The uncus is robust, and there is a narrow scaphium. The juxta is of the inverted ‘Y’ type. The valves are simple, robust, tongue-like, but may have an interior lobe on the sacculus and a small digitate process centrally. The aedeagus is long and slender, the vesica small but moderately convolute.

In the female of the type species, the ostium is associated with the anterior of the eighth segment but situated under the posterior margin of the seventh sternite; this last is only slightly reduced relative to the tergite. The ductus is broad, flocculent over its basal part, though with a marked constriction subbasally. From the broad part distal to this constriction, the ductus tapers gently over some length to become very narrow, and is fluted. The corpus bursae is ovate to pyriform, and finely but densely scobinate throughout.

The genus is moderately diverse throughout the African and Oriental tropics, and extends north into the eastern Palaearctic. Bornean species fall into two groups, with
pudens Walker falling into the typical group and the rest into a group discussed under pallidigera sp. n. that is related to unistrigata Guenée and therefore referable to Maxula Walker. This second group contains the most easterly representative of the genus, an undescribed species from Sulawesi and Ambon that has upperside facies as in H. villicosta Prout (see below), but without the dense scale tufts that characterise the underside of males in the pudens group.

The larva of the type species was described by Gardner (1947) and illustrated by Sugi (1987). The prolegs of A3 are reduced moderately and those of A4 slightly. The ground colour is pale grey, with irregular and broken fine darker lineation longitudinally. There is coarser variegation of this grey with a darker greenish brown laterally on the head, irregularly in a broad band along the dorsum, and broadly laterally on A1, A2, between A5 and A6, and between A7 and A8. The edge of the dorsal band contains white dots with a black streak exterior to them that is most conspicuous on the segments with prolegs.

The pupa has a powdery bloom (Gardner, 1947). This is also seen in
Spirama (Bell, MS).

The host-plant is
Albizia (Leguminosae) to which Miyata (1983) added Acacia and Wisteria; the record in Zhang (1994) of Camellia (Theaceae) needs confirmation.

Larvae in the related genus Spirama (see tribal account) are more uniform with the longitudinal striation predominant. They also feed on Leguminosae (Robinson et al., 2001): Acacia, Albizia, Cassia (records in Zhang (1994) from fruiting trees probably refer to adult feeding).

The adult has been recorded as fruit-piercer in Thailand, as has that of
H. unistrigata (Bänziger, 1982; Kuroko & Lewvanich, 1993).

<<Back >>Forward <<Return to Content Page



Copyright © Southdene Sdn. Bhd. All rights reserved.