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Acropteris Geyer
Type species: grammearia Geyer.
Synonyms: Chlevasta Herrich-Schäffer (type species grammearia);
Stesichora Meyrick (type species puellaria Walker, Timor).
The grey fasciae are characteristically oblique on the forewing and
generally striate rather than linear. The hindwing is symmetrically angled at M3
with a submarginal spot centred on the tail as in Micronia.
The definitive feature is the modification of the male venation where M1 and the anterior cubital veins are displaced basally at their junction with
CuA in the cell, with CuA1 and CuA2 sharing a short common stalk. CuA is
diagnostically thickened, with an anteriorly directed scale tuft, basal to where
CuA1 and CuA2 branch off. The humeral angle of the hindwing is strongly
produced. The male antennae are flattened in some species.
In the male genitalia, dorsal, and often lateral, lobes are present
on the juxta. The valves are relatively narrow, with a single or double digitate
process centrally on the dorsal margin at the distal end of the costal
thickening.
In the female the bursa is globular or ovate, set on a long, slender ductus. The type species and close relatives lack a
signum, but A.
ciniferaria Walker has a small subbasal one, consisting of two patches of
short, laterally directed spines as in Pseudomicronia Moore.
A. ciniferaria has been reared from a genus of Asclepiadaceae
(see below). Lees & Smith (1991) also refer to a record by Rawlins from the
same family in Taiwan, and Nakamura & Yoshiyasu (1992) recorded Acropteris
iphiata Guenée from the asclepiad Metaplexis.
The genus is found throughout the Indo-Australian
tropics, and there are a few species in the Afrotropical and Malagasy regions.
Other Afrotropical species, sometimes attributed to Acropteris but best
placed in Aploschema Warren, lack the definitive venation characters.
These are, however, shown by Stesichora. Aploschema also contains a
single Australian species (Nielsen, Edwards & Rangsi, 1996).
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