Artitropa milleri Riley, 1925

Cock, Matthew J. W., Congdon, T. Colin E. & Collins, Steve C., 2015, Observations on the Biology of Afrotropical Hesperiidae (Lepidoptera). Part 8. Hesperiinae incertae sedis: Dracaena Feeders, Zootaxa 3985 (3), pp. 301-348 : 313

Artitropa milleri Riley, 1925

Riley (1925) described A. milleri from three specimens: a male from Tukuyu, Tanzania, designated the male type, a paratype male from Solwezi, north-western Zambia (ex Dollman collection) and a female from the east Rwenzori, Uganda, designated the female type. At the time, Riley (1925) recognised that ‘certain features in the three specimens recorded seem to suggest that each represents a distinct subspecies’ and that ‘in the event of this being confirmed the Tanganyika race from Tukuyu should be regarded as typical’. We suspect Riley was correct to suggest his type series of A. milleri represents three different subspecies. Evans (1937) lists a further specimen from DR Congo (Lufira River), and described a new subspecies, coryndon Evans, based on material from Nairobi.

Further populations reared by TCEC on the Nyika Plateau in Zambia and Malawi and at Mundwiji, northwestern Zambia appear to represent additional subspecies or closely related species, based on the caterpillars. Following the convention described by Janzen et al. (2009), these are designated A. milleri TCEC01(Nyika) and A. milleri TCEC02(Mundwiji) pending formal taxonomic treatment. Given the locality, A. milleri TCEC02(Mundwiji) may well be the same as Dollman’s specimen included in the type series of A. m. milleri . Material from along the Congo-Zambezi divide in Zambia, and across into western Tanzania in Mpanda and Kigoma may relate to A. milleri TCEC01(Nyika) or what is more probably another taxon found from western Kenya, Uganda and the Rwenzoris, here referred to as A. milleri SCC01(Kakamega).

At this stage we do not further address the taxonomy of the group, but continue to treat them as subspecies or potential subspecies of a single species, while recognising the possibility that there are several species, some with additional subspecies.