Epistauropus vinaceus Moore

Stauropus apiculatus Rothschild, 1917, Novit. zool. 24: 245.

Epistauropus apiculatus Rothschild;Kiriakoff 1968: 59.

Diagnosis

The only other Bornean species with a darker forewing costa and a pale greyish ground is Porsica rufocostata Gaede which has more elongate, apically rounded forewings that lack the marginal dark semicircle of apiculatus. The female of apiculatus is more uniformly darker grey, but with a pale grey band interior to the marginal semicircle.

Taxonomic Note

Epistauropus Gaede was placed as a synonym of Neodrymonia Matsumura by Holloway & Bender (1985: 105). Schintlmeister (1991 [1992]) added Formotensha Matsumura and Disparoides Nakamura as further generic synonyms. He subsequently (S & P, 2007) reviewed this decision and treated Epistauropus and Neodrymonia as distinct, but with Calyptronotum Roepke (a subgenus of Pseudofentonia Strand in Schintlmeister (1991 [1992])) and Pseudostauropus Gaede as subgenera of the former, with Formotensha treated as a good genus and Disparoides retained as a subgenus of Neodrymonia. However, there appears to be as little synapomorphy in features of the male abdomen amongst the genera now (S & P) brought together under Epistauropus as there was in the previous combinations, including the relationship between Pseudostauropus and Thaila Kiriakoff suggested in Part 4 (Thaila is placed as a synonym of Formotensha by S & P). The whole complex of genera noted above, together with Pseudofentonia Strand, Libido Bryk and Disparia Nagano, though probably generally related (many have a strong curved process from the base of the valve costa), requires rigorous cladistic analysis to try to elucidate relationships in the bewildering diversity of structure in the male eighth abdominal segment and genitalia (e.g. the homologies of the pair of bifurcate structures associated with the vinculum in Pseudostauropus). Therefore the treatment here will, as a temporary measure, revert as far as possible to original genera rather than maintaining what appear to be unsatisfactory combinations. S & P identified apiculatus as a synonym of Stauropus vinaceus Moore (N.E. Himalaya; as vinacaeus, repeated by Schintlmeister & Lourens (2010)).

Geographical range

Sundaland, Sulawesi.

Habitat preference

The species is infrequent in lowland dipterocarp forest.

Genitalia: