Lyclene Moore

**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).