Episcepsis Butler, 1877

Pinheiro, Lívia R. & Araujo Junior, Elias C., 2017, Taxonomic notes and a new species of Episcepsis Butler, 1877 (Lepidoptera, Erebidae, Arctiinae, Arctiini, Ctenuchina), Zootaxa 4365 (2), pp. 231-240 : 232

Episcepsis Butler, 1877

Type species: Episcepsis venata Butler, 1877: 49 , pl. 16, fig. 7, by monotypy.

Remarks. Episcepsis is comprised of a few more than 30 relatively small, predominantly brown species. The overall resemblance of its species is remarkable for a Ctenuchina genus, a group that fits well in Watson’s (1971) comment about Arctiina : a group with “seemingly almost arbitrary generic placement of species.” But still, the genus is probably not monophyletic.

The character that possibly justified the assemblage, besides the overall similarity of the species, is the hindwing androconia and the peculiar shape of the hindwings, with the angle between the inner and outer margins pointed instead of round or elongated. However, neither the particular wing morphology nor the androconial organs are present in all species. Moreover, even in the species in which the latter are present, there are at least two types of hair brushes on the inner margin of the hindwings: dorsal, with only very long white androconial scales, and ventral, with scales as the former, plus a set of very short and wide yellow scales. They are probably not homologous, which is not unexpected, given that species of a few other unrelated genera also present hindwing androconia, i.e., this seems to be a trait that has evolved and disappeared multiple times within Ctenuchina .

The type species of Episcepsis , E. venata , belongs to the group of species with dorsal hindwing androconia, which, according to our preliminary assessment, includes around half of all species currently placed in the genus.