Astictopterus C. Felder & R. Felder, 1860

Cock, Matthew J. W. & Congdon, T. Colin E., 2014, Observations on the biology of Afrotropical Hesperiidae (Lepidoptera). Part 7. Hesperiinae incertae sedis: grass and bamboo feeders, Zootaxa 3872 (4), pp. 301-354 : 303-304

Astictopterus C. Felder & R. Felder, 1860

Although Astictopterus is predominantly an African genus, Butler (1870b) fixed the genotype as A. jama C. and R. Felder, one of the two west Malaysian species originally described in the genus ( Felder & Felder 1860). Larsen (2005) raises doubts as to whether the genus is monophyletic, either within Africa, or between Africa and Asia. Of the seven species of Astictopterus currently recognised from Africa ( Ackery et al. 1995), Evans (1937) initially placed two in Astictopterus and four in Isoteinon Felder & Felder , a genus now considered to be monotypic and restricted to east Asia ( Evans 1947, 1949). Evans (1947) transferred the African species of Isoteinon to Astictopterus and subsequently described A. tura Evans as a new species from the genus ( Evans 1951). As reported below, the two African species for which food plants are known are grass feeders, as is the Asian A. jama ( Bascombe et al. 1999) .

The South African A. inornatus (Trimen) is recorded to lay eggs singly on Imperata cylindrica (= I. arundinacea ) and another grass but the early stages have not been documented ( Dickson & Kroon 1978, Pringle et al. 1994, Henning et al. 1997). Larsen (2005) states that the behaviour and habitat of A. abjecta (Snellen) imply that it is a grass feeder. We treat A. stellata (Mabille) below, but the biology of the remaining African species has not been reported.