Apochrysa evanida Gerstaecker

(Figs 3, 8, 9B)

Synthochrysa evanida Gerstaecker, 1893: 154 — Banks, 1931; Brooks & Barnard, 1990; Winterton & Brooks, 2002.

Common name. ‘Vanishing delicate lacewing’.

Diagnosis. Forewing with dark ovoid spot midway along inner gradate series; forewing with three gradate series, hind wing with two gradate series without markings; forewing RA area with RA-RP cross-veins simple, lacking interconnecting cross-veins; basal half of forewing with irregular cross-veins connecting RP branches; inner gradate series of hind wing broadly curved, angled anteriorly at midpoint; end-twigging (forked veinlets) present along most of posterior margin of both wings.

Comments. All species of Apochrysa are well circumscribed morphologically and frequently distributed in non-overlapping geographical regions. Still, A. evanida has remained enigmatic, firstly in regard to its morphological differentiation from other Apochrysa species, and secondly, through doubts expressed by various authors over the accuracy of the type locality and thus its actual geographic distribution (Weele, 1909; Banks, 1931; Kimmins, 1952). Apochrysa evanida was described by Gerstaecker (1893) based on a single specimen with a type locality being ‘Preanger Javae meridionalis’. In Weele’s (1909) treatment of Neuroptera and Mecoptera from the Dutch East Indies, he examined the type specimen of A. evanida located in the collection of the Greifswald Museum (Zoological Institute and Museum, University of Greifswald, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany). He stated that he doubted the collection locality (as South West Java) as he observed another specimen in the collection from Australia, thus inferring that the type of A. evanida was erroneously labelled as Java (Indonesia) instead of nearby Australia. It is not clear that the specimen from Australia he observed was indeed A. evanida and no material has ever been documented as being collected in Australia despite the suggestion that it might be there (Weele, 1909; Kimmins, 1940; New, 1980; Winterton, 1995). Recently, specimens of A. evanida were reared from rugose spiralling white flies ( Aleurodicus rugioperculatus Martin, 2004) on coconut in southern India (Gupta, unpublished data). These new records show that the distribution of the species is wider than previously expected and that the type locality appears correct. Wider surveys throughout South East Asia, east through the Indonesian archipelago towards Papua New Guinea and northern Australia, could indeed prove the existence of this species throughout the broader Melanesian region.