|
SUBFAMILY
ARAEOPTERONINAE |
|
Araeopteron Hampson Type species: pictale Hampson, Sri Lanka. Synonyms: Essonistis Meyrick (type species micraeola Meyrick, Queensland); Thelxinoa Turner (type species epiphracta Turner, Queensland). The labial palps are upturned to the level of the vertex, with the third segment short. The male antennae are weakly fasciculate as illustrated by Hampson (1910). He also illustrated the wing venation. All the radial sector veins form a branching system: (R1((R2(R3, R4))R5)). M3 and CuA1 are stalked on both fore- and hindwings, and Rs and M1 are stalked on the hindwing. The male and female abdomens are as described in the subfamily account above. The signum of the female genitalia is large, consisting of a boss that indents the wall of the corpus bursae and expands, shuttlecock‑like, into a mass of robust spines. The genus is pantropical, but extends also into warm temperate latitudes (Fibiger & Agassiz, 2001). Inoue (1958, 1965) described and illustrated the Japanese fauna, and Fibiger & Hacker (2001) described that from Yemen. Edwards in Nielsen et al. (1996) listed seven species of Araeopteron in Australia (one shared with Borneo), one in the monobasic genus Thaumasiodes Turner and two of Trissernis Meyrick. The latter genus may be congeneric with Araeopteron (a suggestion supported by M. Fibiger (pers. comm.)), as the male genitalia are very similar, illustrated by Holloway (1977) when describing a further species from Norfolk I., New Caledonia and Vanuatu. Material collected by H.S. Barlow from a single locality (Genting Tea Estate) in Peninsular Malaysia indicates that the fauna there totals well into double figures. The only indications of the biology of the genus are: from a species reared from a larva in the pod of Leucaena (Leguminosae) in New Guinea (unpublished IIE records); a species reared from flowers of Bauhinia integrifolia (Leguminosae) in Peninsular Malaysia (H .S. Barlow, pers. comm.). |
Copyright © Southdene Sdn. Bhd. All rights reserved.