MAY 2020 EDITION: ABN 2020 - 3 AFRICAN (NEWS FROM MARCH AND APRIL) BUTTERFLY THE LEPIDOPTERISTS’ SOCIETY OF AFRICA NEWS LATEST NEWS Welcome to May’s newsletter! This edition of ABN, in terms of pages, is the largest to date; if nothing else, the extraordinary recent circumstances have given many of us an opportunity to photograph the butterflies found in our own gardens! The 3rd Afrotropical Lepidoptera Workshop, scheduled for Gabon in November, has had to be postponed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and there is concern about the LepSoc Africa annual conference, scheduled for the weekend of 12 – 13 September. I have provisionally booked the Nestle Centre at Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens, Roodepoort, Gauteng - BotSoc have currently closed the venue, but let’s hope that the situation improves dramatically in the coming months. Corrections Mark Williams and Thomas Desloges noted that I’d omitted Bicyclus mandanes from the list of Bush Browns for which I’d proposed English names. Mark also noticed that Bicyclus campa had been misspelt as B. campus. Steve Collins pointed out that photographs of Euptera hirundo rufa and Charaxes crossleyi ansorgei had been incorrectly captioned Euptera elabontas and Charaxes eurinome respectively. Charaxes zelica zelica should have been C. z. depunta. Steve has kindly volunteered to proof-read draft copies of African Butterfly News; I’m hopeful that this edition will be free of any obvious taxonomic errors! Butterfly releases at weddings Jerome Alexander requested that I warn people about a commercial operation being undertaken by Earle Whitely in KwaZulu-Natal. The business offers to breed butterflies for release at weddings; according to Jerome, he ordered 200 butterflies, which cost R10 000 – it turned out that 80% of them were dead. A colleague of his had a similar experience. 1 Chrysoritis paper A new paper on Chrysoritis has been published by a team of researchers including Alan Heath. The paper does not include any taxonomic revisions, but investigates the phylogenetic and biogeographic history of the genus and establishes evolutionary branches for both the C. chrysaor and C. thysbe species groups and lineages that fall between them. The estimated age of divergence of Chrysoritis from a common ancestor is 32 million years although the rapid diversification of the thysbe group seems to have occurred in the last 2 million years. Western fynbos appears to be the source of origin of the thysbe group, whereas the C. chrysaor group has radiated from the more easterly parts of South Africa. Chrysoritis Insect apocalypse – latest A new study – one of the largest undertaken to date – indicates that the so called “insect apocalypse” may not, in some cases be as drastic as previously reported, but that the picture is complicated… Butterflies – on average – appear to be declining at a rate of approximately 1% per year, although some fresh-water based insects might actually be increasing in numbers. Insect apocalypse - latest Clouds over the Clouded Yellow You may recall Mark Williams’s article in March’s newsletter, where he noted the reappearance of the African Clouded Yellow (Colias electo electo) in Gauteng this season - this species had almost completely disappeared from the Highveld, a state of affairs that occurred over a very brief period of time about 15 years ago. There may be parallels elsewhere in the world. Alexei Belik writes from Saratov, southwestern Russia and notes that Danube Clouded Yellow (Colias myrmidone) used to be a common butterfly in this part of the world. Despite the continued presence of its larval food plant Chamaecytisus ruthenicus – which is extremely abundant - the butterfly seems to have completely disappeared. Swara Magazine Steve Collins forwarded me a copy of Swara magazine, a conservation journal focussed on East Africa. It includes an article summarizing the recent paper on the African Plain Tiger (Danaus chrysippus orientis) that was produced by Steve and co. Swara - April 2020 2 Genus Acontia in Southern Africa (Hanna and Wolf-Achim Roland) The Acontia species: these beautiful little moths of the family Noctuiidae can be found by day and night, almost everywhere in Southern Africa. In this short overview we want to address some features of the genus, especially their appearance, sexual dimorphism, differentiation of two very similar looking species, the endemic species of Namibia and the characteristics of the caterpillars. According to the website AfroMoths there are 164 species in Africa, 53 of them in Southern Africa. LEPIMAP carries 250 Acontia observations. Their forewing colouration is characteristically bird-dropping like, with a milky-white, shiny ground- colour. Acontia antica Acontia wahlbergi Often the Acontia moths are found sitting on top of leaves – not hiding below them. Acontia permutata Acontia natalis 3 Females are distinctly darker than males – especially on their hindwings. As the moths rarely open their wings, this feature can be seen on pictures of museum examples like here for A. umbrigera. Acontia umbrigera In some cases dimorphism is so strong that in former times male and female specimens of a species have been considered to be two different species. A good example of this dimorphism is Acontia guttifera: Acontia guttifera; female Acontia guttifera; male (Copyright: K. Braun) There are two species which look very much alike, but can be determined by genital analysis – or by geographical distribution. According to Lit 1, Acontia umbrigera is restricted to the Cape Region, the distribution area extending north to Windhoek/Namibia. Acontia trimaculata is widespread in most parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and on the Arabian peninsula. One possible distinguishing feature on photos is the white median blotch, which is significantly shorter and quadrate in A. umbrigera Acontia trimaculata, near Alldays, Limpopo Acontia umbrigera, Cape Region; Copyright: T.Rebelo 4 In Namibia there are a lot of endemic species: A. annemarie, A. aureola; A. aurevillii; A. cimbebasia, A. namibiensis, A. okahandja, A. wallengreni, A. wolframmeyi. Some of them show a very restricted distribution. Acontia annemarie Acontia wolframmeyi Acontia aureola Acontia wallengreni Lit 1 contains a revision of the genus Acontia OCHSENHEIMER, 1816. In this work, one subgenus, 63 species and 8 subspecies are described that are new to science, for example A. permutata. 5 Acontia permutata Acontia melaphora Lit 2 contains a further revision, transferring e.g. Protarache melaphora to genus Acontia. The caterpillars are mostly colourful. They often feed on Malvaceae. Lit 3 cites: Larval abdominal segment 1 with 2 SV setae (this character will separate Acontiinae larvae from larvae in the subfamily Eustrotiinae). • Prolegs absent on segments 1-4. • Spinneret highly reduced or absent. • Anal shield with a large anal fork. Acontia nephele Acontia insocia 6 Acontia transfigurata Acontia conifrons Identification of different species, by photographs alone, will remain difficult. But this overview may give hints of what to look for. Solingen, January 2020 Literature 1. Esperiana 14 (2008); Hermann H. Hacker, Albert Legrain & Michael Fiebinger Revision of the genus Acontia OCHSENHEIMER, 1816 (Old World) 2. Esperiana 15 (2010) Hermann H. Hacker, Albert Legrain & Michael Fiebinger Revision of the genus Acontia – Corrigenda and Supplementa 3. http://nearctica.com/moths/noctuid/acontia/acontiinae.htm Contact: [email protected] 7 Selected encounters with Noctuids (Hanna Roland) Speaking of the so-called owlet moths, people often think of some dark and inconspicuous night flyers, which are not welcomed or even feared by the tourists in South Africa or Namibia. Working with the database LEPIMAP of the University of Cape Town, you may be astonished by the fact that over 65% of the entries are butterflies and only 35% belong to the moths, while the number of moth species is 10 times higher than that of butterflies. And there are very few moth- experts. In my opinion moths have a more mysterious beauty than butterflies. Over the last few years we have increasingly encountered the problem of suitable lights, to get the desired moth pictures, because of the general aim not to attract insects at night. And lately more and more lodges switch to ecological solar systems for well justified reasons, but unfortunately they are not appropriate for my work. That means that I depend completely on appropriate lights. During the very many years that we have been discovering different parts of Southern Africa, we were lucky to encounter an overwhelming amount of attractive owlet moths, which are now scientifically divided into Noctuidae and various sub-families of Erebidae. In order to highlight the incredible variety of designs, colours and shapes, I have selected several remarkable representatives of this family. I always feel specially rewarded, when these colourful little creatures open their wings to present the full palette of their beauty, as in: Ovios capensis or Attatha barlowi And even if they are grey, they can attract your attention by their wing pattern, dark red bodies or remarkable antennae. 8 Calesia zambesita Antiophlebia bracteata Another striking aspect can be found in the Hypeninae, which are often endowed with a showy beak (below left). Some of the Euteliidae have a special way to fold their wings and to hold their body in an upward position (right). Rhynchina tinctalis Eutelia callichroma Another unusual representative with fascinating features is: Hemiceratoides hieroglyphica 9 One of the better known and rather small species has an outstanding pink and yellow design (left). Another even smaller species of the Genus Earias shows bright green or yellow colours (right), Timora leucosticta Earias biplaga In contrast, the next two moths have a more conspicuous size and also a remarkable pattern. When I am patrolling the different lamp-sites of a lodge at night, they undoubtedly will catch my eye: Lepidodelta stolifera Fodina embolophora 10 A night-flyer of exquisite beauty, which cannot be so easily distinguished between the leaves of a bush where it is resting, wears a design that is certainly meant to melt with the surroundings of trees and bushes.