Pyranthrene hypocalla (Le Cerf, 1937) comb. nov. (Tipulamima)

Tipulamima hypocalla Le Cerf, 1937: 409; Heppner & Duckworth 1981: 41; Pühringer & Kallies 2004: 33.

Type material: Holotype ♂: Afrique occidentale, Guinée portugaise [Guinea-Bissau], Rio Cassine [Cacine?], 1.Jan.1900, L. Fea leg. (destroyed).

This insufficiently known species is here provisionally transferred to Pyranthrene Hampson, 1919 [type species: P. flammans Hampson 1919, original designation] (Osminiini). The male holotype, the only known specimen, was destroyed along with almost all the types of Lepidoptera of the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale "Giacomo Doria" through a fire during the Second World War (Fabio Penati, pers. com.). In the original description, Le Cerf refers to the problematic generic placement of this species and concludes: “Ill est possible qu’ hypocalla appartienne à une genre nouveau, plus ou moins voisin de Tipulamima, mais on ne pourrait être fixé sur ses affinités réelles que par l’examen d’échantillons bien conservés”. According to Le Cerf (1937), P. hypocalla is a small species with alar expanse 17 mm, opaque wings, hindlegs nearly twice as long as abdomen. The male antenna lacks visible ciliae, which strongly suggests affiliation to Osminiini. Only one central African species of this tribe, P. flammans, appears fairly similar in its size, its long hindlegs and the completely opaque, red and brownish-black wings (bronze-brown with steel blue to violet gloss, forewing discal spot diffuse darker, hindwing with discal spot large, quadratic and narrow ovoid transparent area distal between M1 and M 2 in P. hypocalla).