De rerum: an acknowlegement and explanation.
INDEX: Linnaean

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Telchinia: the genus

I have found four species of Telchinia in our area. Two are very common: T. enecedon -(1) and T. encedon -(2), and T. esebria (1)) and T. esebria - (forms). The other two are less so: T. cabira and T. serena which I have posted consecutively. The last two share the food plants Hibiscus, Triumfetta and Hermannia spp.
Because of the recent revision of the genus, I looked this all up and hope I have got my facts right. The history is something like this:
Fabricius was a pupil of Linne. One of the many genera he created within his masters "all generic" Papilio was the Acraea in 1807 using Linne's P. hortus as the type species (TS).
As early as 1819 Hubner, realising the polyphyletic nature of the group, created two additional genera. One was Actinote (TS P. thalia Linnaeus 1758) for the neo-tropical group. The other was Telchinia (TS P. serena Fabricius 1775) for the African group.
This African group seems to have followed the generic path:
Acraea Fabricius 1807 TS P. hortus Linnaeus 1764
Telchinia Hubner 1819 TS P. serena
Hyalites Doubleday 1848 TS P. lycia Fabricius = A. encedon (Linnaeus 1758)
Having then been lumped with Actinote it appears now to have been split off to Telchinia.
See: Andrew Brower (TolWeb), and Wikipedia on Acraeas

I have put in pictures of two of our indigenous Hibiscus. I don't know if these are used as food plants, but thought they might brighten up this posting.


 


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