Pyranthrene hypocalla ( Le Cerf, 1937 ) Bartsch & Sáfián, 2022

Bartsch, Daniel & Sáfián, Szabolcs, 2022, Taxonomic changes and review of the genera Tipulamima Holland, 1893 and Macrotarsipodes Le Cerf, 1916 stat. rev. (Lepidoptera: Sesiidae: Sesiinae), Zootaxa 5094 (1), pp. 103-128 : 125

Pyranthrene hypocalla ( Le Cerf, 1937) comb. nov. ( Tipulamima )

Tipulamima hypocalla Le Cerf, 1937: 409 ; Heppner & Duckworth 1981: 41; Pühringer & Kallies 2004: 33.

Type material: Holotype ♂: Afrique occidentale, Guinée portugaise [ Guinea-Bissau], Rio Cassine [Cacine?], 1.Jan.1900, L. Fea leg. (destroyed).

This insufficiently known species is here provisionally transferred to Pyranthrene Hampson, 1919 [type species: P. flammans Hampson 1919 , original designation] ( Osminiini ). The male holotype, the only known specimen, was destroyed along with almost all the types of Lepidoptera of the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale "Giacomo Doria" through a fire during the Second World War (Fabio Penati, pers. com.). In the original description, Le Cerf refers to the problematic generic placement of this species and concludes: “Ill est possible qu’ hypocalla appartienne à une genre nouveau, plus ou moins voisin de Tipulamima , mais on ne pourrait être fixé sur ses affinités réelles que par l’examen d’échantillons bien conservés”. According to Le Cerf (1937), P. hypocalla is a small species with alar expanse 17 mm, opaque wings, hindlegs nearly twice as long as abdomen. The male antenna lacks visible ciliae, which strongly suggests affiliation to Osminiini . Only one central African species of this tribe, P. flammans , appears fairly similar in its size, its long hindlegs and the completely opaque, red and brownish-black wings (bronze-brown with steel blue to violet gloss, forewing discal spot diffuse darker, hindwing with discal spot large, quadratic and narrow ovoid transparent area distal between M1 and M 2 in P. hypocalla ).