Caenides Holland , 1896

Cock, Matthew J. W., Congdon, Colin E. & Collins, Steve C., 2014, Observations on the biology of Afrotropical Hesperiidae (Lepidoptera). Part 6. Hesperiinae incertae sedis: palm feeders, Zootaxa 3831 (1), pp. 1-61 : 52

Caenides Holland, 1896

Caenides , as currently defined, contains species which feed as caterpillars on Arecaceae , Zingiberaceae , Costaceae and Colchicaceae (some lilies). The palm-feeder C. dacela is treated here, whereas C. dacena (Hewitson) has been reared from Costus , Costaceae ( Vuattoux 1999, Vande weghe 2010, MJWC unpublished observations), and will be treated in a subsequent part of this series. Furthermore, we note, and will document in this future part, that the early stages of these two species are sufficiently different to indicate that they are not congeneric. T.B. Larsen (pers. comm. 2014) advises that he expects to move C. dacena to a genus of its own, close to Hypoleucis and Semalea , based on the structure of the male genitalia.

Other workers provide additional insight: C. kangvensis Holland has been reared from the lily Gloriosa superba ( Colchicaceae , formerly Liliaceae ) and Thalia welwitschii (Marantaceae) , but the early stages were not documented ( Vuattoux 1999, repeated in Vande weghe 2010). Larsen (2005) expresses surprise at the record from a lily ( Liliaceae ), being aware of no other records from the family, however, MJWC found a skipper caterpillar (89/ 202) on what he thought was a Liliaceae in Côte d’Ivoire, but failed to rear it through or preserve a sample of the food plant. Caenides soritia (Hewitson) has been reported from an undetermined Zingiberaceae ( Sevastopulo 1975, unpublished) and reared once from Elaeis guineensis in Côte d’Ivoire ( Vuattoux 1999); these contrasting food plants which are repeated in Vande weghe (2010), need confirmation.