TRIBE SYPNINI
View Image Gallery of Tribe Sypnini.

This complex of genera was reviewed by Berio & Fletcher (1958), and is probably monophyletic (the phylum of Sypna of Berio (1959)), though Berio & Fletcher did not include Pterocyclophora Hampson. The group can be loosely defined on similarities of facies, male genitalia and some aspects of the spining of the legs, but includes species both with and without tibial spining within two of the genera, Sypnoides Hampson and Hypersypnoides Berio. Sypna itself and Daddala Walker lack tibial spining, whereas it is present in Pterocyclophora. The facies of the forewing is generally cryptic and irregularly fasciated, the fasciae often rather broken. The submarginal is usually biarcuate, sometimes with only the anterior arc present and often enclosing a paler zone distal to its concavity. The hindwings are much more uniform, usually darker towards the margin, with fasciation occurring only in this marginal zone and tending to be more intense towards the tornus. The marginal fringes are often paler over the anterior half of the hindwing, and the margins of all the wings are usually scalloped, sometimes strongly so. This scalloping is more prominent, sometimes extended into slight tails, in Daddala and Pterocyclophora. The underside patterning often includes one or two strong, dark, narrow medial to antemedial bands set in a much paler ground, together with a broader but usually more diffuse submarginal band. The male antennae are fasciculate or bipectinate. The labial palps are typically catocaline with a slender third segment. The clypeofrons is unscaled and there is a well developed pair of extensions into the diaphragm between the first and second abdominal tergites.

Berio used features of the male genitalia for recognition of individual genera, as well as elements of the facies. Features found in most or all genera include a tegumen that is somewhat flexed to project the uncus posteriorly, rather as in many butterfly genera, such that mounting of the genitalia laterally may be necessary to avoid distortion. A scaphium is often present. The valve usually has an interior flap or flange associated with the dorsal margin of the sacculus, though the position of this can vary (distal in
Sypna, basal in Daddala, central and obliquely based in Hypersypnoides). The saccus is long and slender. The aedeagus is also slender, with the insertion of the ductus ejaculatorius usually (many Sypnoides and some Hypersypnoides species are an exception) set well distal to the base, the basal section being much narrower. The aedeagus may bear clusters or rows of spines more distally. The juxta is usually a small plate. The eighth segment of the abdomen is variously modified, the sternite and tergite considerably shortened almost to transverse strips in Sypnoides and Hypersypnoides, but with a more elaborate system of hair-pencils in Daddala. The structure does not appear to be comparable to, or a modification of, the framed corematous type.

In the female genitalia, the ostium is associated more with the eighth segment than the seventh, but the latter has the sternite reduced relative to the tergite as described on p. 20. The ductus is usually short, and the corpus bursae is small to moderate, usually unsclerotised, with no signum. 

The greatest diversity of the group is in the Oriental tropics and subtropics; many of the Bornean species are restricted to montane forests (Table 1). This diversity is attenuated through Wallacea to New Guinea, with one species of
Sypna extending to Australia and one of Pterocyclophora endemic to the Solomons. Sypna and Sypnoides also have species in Africa.

Larval host records are mostly from Fagaceae, but several species of
Sypnoides Hampson and Hypersypnoides Berio have been recorded from both Quercus in that family and also Malus, Rosa and Rubus (Rosaceae) (Miyata, 1983; Sugi, 1972, 1987; Robinson et al., 2001; see also below). The larvae of Sypnoides species are described under that genus, but no descriptions of the larvae of other genera have been located.

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