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Lyclene
Moore
Type species: humilis Walker,
Burma.
Synonyms: Cyllene Walker
(type species humilis) praeocc.; Setinochroa Felder (type species infumata
Felder, Himalayas); Xanthocraspeda Hampson (type species marginata
Walker, India).
This genus is used here to
include a diverse assemblage of groups of species that were previously assigned
to Asura, but the concept is more limited than that applied by Nielsen et
al. (1996), excluding various other genera that had previously been placed
as synonyms of Asura or Barsine Walker (see
Barsine Walker) as discussed under
those genera.
Lyclene is
here defined on the sharing of most or all of the following features: a yellow
ground colour with a forewing facies consisting of fine transverse fasciae,
longitudinal streaks and rows of spots in various shades of grey to brown or
black; a male abdomen that usually grades darker towards the apex with the same
colour as the forewing markings; valves in the male genitalia that usually have
both distal costal and (always) saccular processes developed, but no more basal
ones; an aedeagus vesica with a small number (often two) of large cornuti that
may be rather blade-like, possibly also with more general fine scobination; in
the female, a small, rather spherical bursa set on a relatively short ductus,
and containing at least some moderate to long spines amid more general
scobination; the seventh abdominal segment may bear distinctive sclerotised
pockets laterally that presumably receive the distal processes of the male
valves. The male abdominal coremata are usually well developed.
The genus is very diverse in
the Oriental Tropics, but much less so progressively east of Sulawesi. All the
species assigned to Lyclene by Nielsen et al. (1996) appear to be
better placed in Cyme Felder (see Barsine
Walker). A number of different species
groups can be identified in the Bornean fauna and are discussed in the taxonomic
note for the first in the sequence; there are also several more distinctive
species that are treated last in the sequence below.
The larvae probably feed
mostly on lichens and mosses (e.g. Piepers & Snellen, 1904; Sevastopulo,
1940) but there are some possibly genuine records of higher plant defoliation as discussed below; others (e.g. in
Yunus & Ho (1980)) need confirmation.
Lyclene
dharma Moore comb. n. (Himalaya,
Japan) was reared by Nishihara (1992b). The larva is ringed on each segment by a
dense band of short, carpet-like setae on verrucae, with a fringe of longer ones
down each side. The larva feeds on living leaf tissue of Pieris (Ericaceae).
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