Genus Araeopteron Hampson, 1893

Figures 1-6, 7-12

Araeopteron Hampson, 1893, Illustrations of Typical Specimens of Lepidoptera Heterocera in the Collection of the British Museum 9: 33, 136. Type species: Araeopteron pictale Hampson, 1893 [Sri Lanka].

Synonymy.

Araeopterum Hampson, 1896, emendation; Thelxinoa Turner, 1902; Essonistis Meyrick, 1902; Araeopterella Fibiger & Hacker, 2001; Araeoptera Hampson, 1910, emendation.

References.

Inoue 1958, 1965; Nye 1975; Sugi 1982; Poole 1989; Kononenko 1990, 2003, 2005, 2010, 2016; Kononenko et al. 1998; Fibiger and Agassiz 2001; Fibiger and Hacker 2001; Fibiger 2002; Kononenko and Han 2007; Fibiger and Kononenko 2008; Guillermet 2009; Holloway 2009, 2011; Kononenko and Pinratana 2013; Bippus 2018; Wu et al. 2020.

Diagnosis.

Small and very small species, wingspan 9-18 mm. Forewing narrow, with oblique outer margin and long fringes; hindwing shorter than forewing, with shallow concavity under apex; wing colour grey or brown-grey, in some species with orange or pale reddish patches, reniform stigma black; frons scaled. In the male genitalia, tegumen short, broad, paratergal sclerites uniting the tegumen and vinculum hugely developed; vinculum short and broad; uncus with long coecum; costa and cucullus membranous; sacculus sclerotised, narrow; apex of sacculus spatulate or club-shaped; uncus thin, rather short, curved. In the female genitalia, a small raised membranous or slightly sclerotised patch or low cone covered with long hair-like setae lies between posterior ends of anal papillae; signum cone-like or hat-like with a rounded top, fringed basally with spines; sometimes signum as relatively large flat plate. Larva and food specialisation are unknown.

The genus includes 45 described species and many undescribed species distributed mainly in tropical and subtropical regions; a few species extend into the temperate zone.

In China five described species of the genus Araeopteron are known (Fibiger and Kononenko 2008), of which two species, A. canescens (Walker, [1866]) and A. fasciale (Hampson, 1896) have recently been found in southeast China by Wu et al. (2020). Three further new Araeopteron species are described below.