Semalea Holland , 1896

Cock, Matthew J. W., Congdon, T. Colin E. & Collins, Steve C., 2016, Observations on the biology of Afrotropical Hesperiidae (Lepidoptera). Part 9. Hesperiinae incertae sedis: Zingiberales feeders, genera of unknown biology and an overview of the Hesperiinae incertae sedis, Zootaxa 4066 (3), pp. 201-247 : 211

Semalea Holland, 1896

Holland (1896) established this genus with S. pulvina (Plötz) as type species, together with S. arela (Mabille) (as its synonym S. nox (Mabille) , nox being the male and arela the female of the same species). There are now five, possibly six species in this genus of Afrotropical skippers ( Larsen 2005). Of these, we have reared the two relatively common species, S. arela and S. pulvina from Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. The males of the genus are usually more or less plain brown, with a variety of brands which are useful for identification, while the females have variable white hyaline markings ( Evans 1937). The food plants of these two species are Zingiberaceae , and it is likely that the other members of the genus will also be found to have food plants in this family.