Pidorus Walker

Type species: glaucopis Drury, India.

Synonym: Laurion Walker (type species metallica Walker = circe Herrich-Schäffer, N. India, Bangladesh).

Yen et al. (2005: 172) marked Pidoras as one genus where the classification may have been affected by convergence of wing pattern. The species currently included are dark brown with a pale, slightly curved band that runs from just distal to the centre of the forewing costa to the tornus.

The genus is dispersed over seven of the numbered clades in the analysis of Yen et al. (2005). They indicated in Appendix 1 that eight of the species-groups they recognised should be transferred to new genera and that one (see below) should be transferred to Retina Walker. Also, the type species, glaucopis, and a few other mainland Asian groups were placed in Clade 10, together with Hemiscia Jordan (New Guinea, N. Moluccas, Philippines), but circe, type species of the current generic synonym Laurion, is placed with two other groups in a subclade of Clade 12. Both these other groups were indicated as needing transfer, but the name Laurion is available, and the ochrolophus Mell group was placed as sister-taxon to circe in the analysis. However, none of the Bornean species falls within Clade 10 or Clade 12; they are located in five other clades: 7, 8, 9, 11 and 16. All were indicated by Yen et al. (2005) as meriting transferral to other or new genera. These dispersions amongst the clades appeared to be robust over various sub-analyses when various character suites (e.g. colour, immatures, sexual features) were inactivated.

Yen et al. (2005: 274) stated that deactivation of colour pattern characters led to the placement of Clades 8 and 9 as basal to Clade 7, which itself contains a further Pidorus species, gemina Walker, as discussed in a biogeographic context on p. 35. If the record of the gemina from Borneo (Endo & Kishida, 1999) is correct, this would bring three Bornean species into a basal sequence of Clade 7: corculum Butler, bifasciata Walker and gemina. These will be treated under “Pidorus” below.

The taxon P. constrictus Walker is discussed under Retina, being grouped as sister-taxon to the type species of that genus in Clade 11.

The remaining two Bornean “Pidorus”, hilaris Jordan and splendens Jordan, are endemic rarities that have only been recorded from the vicinity of G. Kinabalu. The pair is placed in Clade 16 with the Sundanian zehma Herrich-Schäffer group of Chalcosia Hübner (also flagged by Yen et al. (2005) in Appendix 1 as requiring transferral) as sister-group. These three taxa in turn are sister to a pair of monobasic East Asian genera, Pseudopidorus Yen & Yang and Neochalcosia Yen & Yang. Yen & Yang (1997) presented their new genera as sister-taxa, but suggested they were in turn sister to typical Chalcosia and Milleria Herrich-Schäffer, but placed Chalcosia zehma as sister-taxon to this whole complex. Clade 16 is contrary to this hypothesis, and recurred through a number of analyses with character sets inactivated, including those for male eighth abdominal segment characters; no unique characters defined the clade, but three descriptive characters of the male eighth sternite were shown to be important in Appendices 4 and 5 of Yen et al.

The larvae illustrated (Sugi, 1989; Yen et al., 2005) for many Pidorus species are longitudinally banded variously in black, orange-yellow and blue, and are mostly cylindrical with long primary setae on small tubercles.