COELIADINAE

Cock, Matthew J. W., 2010, Observations on the biology of Afro-tropical Hesperiidae (Lepidoptera) principally from Kenya. Part 1. Introduction and Coeliadinae, Zootaxa 2547, pp. 1-63 : 10-11

COELIADINAE

Chiba (2009) has just revised this subfamily, including the African species, resulting in several changes in taxonomy. There are three genera present in Africa: Pyrrhochalcia , Pyrrhiades and Coeliades , and although only the latter two are present in Kenya, I record observations on species of all three genera.

Lindsey & Miller (1965) described the genus Pyrrhiades , intermediate between Pyrrhochalcia and Coeliades , for the single species, P. lucagus (Cramer) , although they noted that P. aeschylus (Plötz) might also belong in this genus. Chiba (2009) transferred four species including anchises Gerstaecker and aeschylus from Coeliades to Pyrrhiades , based principally on the male genitalia, characterised by a deeply divided uncus in Pyrrhiades . Superficially the adults of Pyrrhiades and Coeliades appear similar, although P. lucagus and P. aeschylus behave differently. Like Pyrrhochalcia iphis , both have a slow flight, associated with being distasteful or mimicking something distasteful (or both), whereas all other species of Pyrrhiades and Coeliades have a very powerful and rapid flight ( Larsen 2005a). As shown below for four species of Pyrrhiades and 12 species of Coeliades , there are no obvious generic differences in the early stages, although C. chalybe (Westwood) , C. fervida (Butler) , C. libeon (Druce) and C. ramanatek (Boisduval) differ from other member of the two genera.

I have not reared enough caterpillars from the earliest stages to have confidence as to the normal number of caterpillar instars. Some species have six instars, maybe more. Accordingly, for field collected caterpillars successfully reared, I have followed the practice used in Holloway et al. (1987) and Janzen & Hallwachs (2009), and recognised the final instar (n), penultimate instar (n–1), and earlier instars (n–2, n–3, etc.) unless I had clear evidence to support all instars, e.g. C. f. forestan below. This does not imply that the number of instars in captivity necessarily reflects the number in the field. I recognise that if the food plant is limited, in poor condition, or a different species, there could occasionally be more instars in captivity.

In all Coeliadinae species treated below, especially in the later instars, the head is rounded and the vertex is indented, and there are no visible setae or hairs on the head or body (although setae are visible using a microscope). In the early instars the vertex is less indented. This information is not repeated in each species account.