Strigocossus Houlbert, 1916

Yakovlev, Roman V. & Murphy, Raymond J., 2013, The Cossidae (Lepidoptera) of Malawi with descriptions of two new species, Zootaxa 3709 (4), pp. 371-393 : 380-381

Genus Strigocossus Houlbert, 1916

Strigocossus Houlbert, 1916: 85 . Type species— Strigocossus leucopteris Houlbert, 1916 . By original designation.

Systematic notes. The genus Strigocossus was established by Houlbert (1916) for Strigocossus leucopteris Houlbert, 1916 and he later included a second African species in the genus, Phalaena (Noctua) crassa Drury, 1782 . Schoorl (1990) confirmed the validity of the genus and considerably extended its content, he included 11 species from Madagascan and African faunas: S. leucopteris Houlbert, 1916 , S. malgacica Houlbert, 1916 , S. cretacea (Butler, 1878) , S. moderata (Walker, 1856) , S. crassa (Drury, 1782) , S. capensis (Walker, 1856) , S. guillemei (Houlbert, 1916) , S. tandoensis (Bethune-Baker, 1927) , S. mediopallens (Fletcher, 1968) , S. ochricosta (Fletcher, 1968) , S. kilimandjarae (Le Cerf, 1914) . Taxa Duomitus lunifera Hampson, 1910 , D. polioplaga Hampson, 1910 and Xyleutes speciosus Houlbert, 1916 were treated as junior subjective synonyms of Strigocossus crassa while taxa Xyleutes sjostedti Aurivillius, 1910 and Azygophleps flavitincta Hampson, 1910 were junior subjective synonyms of Srigocossus capensis .

In Cossidae of Old World (Yakovlev 2011) the genus Strigocossus includes 14 species of Afrotropical fauna based on revision of available types and new specimens. This catalogue described two new species ( S. hepialoides from Tanzania and S. kushit from Ethiopia), raised two recently described subspecies to specific rank ( Strigocossus vosseleri (Gaede, 1930) and S. ambahona (Viette, 1954)) , аnd synonymized Strigocossus cretacea (Butler, 1878) with Xyleutes malgacica Houlbert, 1916 .

An investigation of African specimens revealed that a relatively widely distributed species was not attributed to any described taxon and we describe it below as a new species.