Gretna Evans, 1937

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 : 32

Gretna Evans, 1937

This is a genus of six Afrotropical skippers ( Evans 1937, Ackery et al. 1995). Gretna as currently constituted includes some species that feed on palms and at least one that feeds on Marantaceae , an unusual combination in one genus. Below we treat Gretna carmen capra , G. waga (Plötz) and G. balenge balenge ( Holland) , all of which feed on palms. Vuattoux (1999) reared G. cylinda (Hewitson) from three species of Marantaceae only. MJWC found a Gretna sp. caterpillar on a Marantaceae in Uganda, which based on the known distribution of Gretna spp. is probably G. cylinda , but could be G. zaremba jacksoni Evans. This species will be treated in a later part of this series, dealing with Marantaceae-feeders.

Based on the early stages of these three species and G. cylinda , there are three distinct groups of species: (1) Gretna carmen and G. waga , (2) G. balenge , and (3) G. cylinda . As we show below, the first two groups have substantial differences, but also some key similarities. Once we have treated G. cylinda along with other Marantaceae-feeders, we will further discuss the integrity of the genus.