Fresna Evans, 1937

Cock, Matthew J. W. & Congdon, Colin E., 2013, Observations on the Biology of Afrotropical Hesperiidae (Lepidoptera). Part 5. Hesperiinae incertae sedis: Dicotyledon Feeders, Zootaxa 3724 (1), pp. 1-85 : 55

Fresna Evans, 1937

When Evans (1937) described Fresna as a new genus, he made Fresna netopha (Hewitson) the type species and included three other species. Two more species have been described since then ( Larsen 2005), making six at present. We have reared no members of this genus, but there are food plant records and at least one published picture of a caterpillar, and these are summarised below.

Fresna cojo (Karsch) was reared on four occasions by Vuattoux (1999) in Côte d’Ivoire, each from a different Fabaceae tree: Andira inermis , Millettia thonningii (Faboideae) , Anthonotha crassifolia (Caesalpinioideae) and Albizia zygia (perhaps a synonym of A. brownei ) ( Mimosoideae ). Based on Vuattoux’s work, some or all these food plants were listed by Larsen (1991), Ackery et al. (1995), Heath et al. (2002) and Larsen (2005).

Larsen (1991) records R. Vuattoux rearing F. netopha (Hewitson) from Paullinia (Sapindaceae) , and Ackery et al. (1995) and Heath et al. (2002) repeat this. However, when Vuattoux (1999) published his rearing records, he gave only Afrormosia laxiflora (which has also been placed in the genus Pericopsis ) ( Fabaceae , Caesalpinioideae ) as the food plant for F. netopha (Hewitson) , which Larsen (2005) repeats. In contrast, Vuattoux (1999) records rearing F. nyassae twice from Paullinia pinnata . MJWC has examined a voucher Fresna sp. reared by R. Vuattoux from P. pinnata and it is F. netopha . There seems to have been some confusion between these two Fresna spp. and their respective food plants. Provisionally, the two entries in Vuattoux (1999) should be swapped, i.e. F. nyassae has been reared once from A. laxiflora , and F. netopha has been reared twice from P. pinnata , but this needs to be confirmed by further checking specimens and ideally, additional rearing.