Observations on the biology of Afrotropical Hesperiidae (Lepidoptera). Part 9. Hesperiinae incertae sedis: Zingiberales feeders, genera of unknown biology and an overview of the Hesperiinae incertae sedis
Author
Cock, Matthew J. W.
Author
Congdon, T. Colin E.
Author
Collins, Steve C.
text
Zootaxa
2016
4066
3
201
247
journal article
51187
10.11646/zootaxa.4066.3.1
efd9df5e-1439-4724-ae76-a219f7c3ce70
1175-5326
264653
680D0FB4-F3BC-4562-B214-631067287218
Xanthodisca
Aurivillius, 1925
This genus was introduced by
Aurivillius (1925)
for
Astictopterus vibius
Hewitson
and
Pamphila rega
Mabille
, which at that time was considered a subspecies of
vibius
. Up until then,
vibius
had been treated as a species of
Pardaleodes
, and
Evans (1937)
considered
Xanthodisca
to be closely allied to
Pardaleodes
.
Evans added two species to the genus:
Pardaleodes astrape
from West and central Africa and
Pamphila ariel
Mabille
, a Madagascan endemic.
Carcasson (1981)
and
Ackery
et al
. (1995)
treated
X. vibius
and
X. rega
as distinct species, and
Larsen (2005)
confirmed that they overlap in distribution in
Cameroon
.
The late T.B. Larsen (pers. comm. 2015) re-examined the members of the genus, and concluded that
X. ariel
probably belongs to one of the Madagascan endemic genera (
Perrotia
or
Miraja
), whereas
astrape
is not related to any other genus, so he planned to describe new genus to hold it. The food plants of
ariel
are unknown but Larsen suggests they will be found to be bamboos, whereas
X. vibius
and
X. rega
feed on
Aframomum
spp. (
Zingiberaceae
) and
X. astrape
feeds on
Marantaceae
, and is treated below in the section on
Marantaceae
feeders. Contrary to what
Aurivillius (1925)
and
Evans (1937)
thought,
Xanthodisca
is not closely related to
Pardaleodes
, a grass-feeding genus treated in Cock & Congdon (2014), rather it shows clear affinities with the other Zingiberaceae-feeders treated here, especially
Semalea
(above).