HESPERIINAE Latreille, 1809

The subfamily was introduced in Cock & Congdon (2012). Evans (1937) grouped the African species into several more or less well defined genera groups, but recognised that the classification of Hesperiinae is not satisfactory. Warren et al. (2009) made significant progress towards a new classification of the Hesperiidae, using morphological and molecular data, but made relatively little progress with the African Hesperiinae. Heteropterinae was confirmed as a separate subfamily, and the tribes Aeromachini and Baorini absorbed a few species (see Cock & Congdon 2012), but the remainder, representing the great majority, were left incertae sedis —of uncertain placement.

Evans (1937) divided the African Hesperiinae into five genera groups: the Ampittia group, the Ceratrichia group, the Acleros group, the Ploetzia group, and the Gegenes group. The first and last of these were also recognised in the Euro-Asia-Australian fauna (Evans 1949), although the first was referred to as the Astictopterus group. Part of the Ampittia group is included in Aeromachini and part of the Gegenes group is included in Baorini (Warren et al. 2009; Cock & Congdon 2012). We have found that all Evans’ African genera groups apart from the Ploetzia group include species whose caterpillars feed on dicotyledons.

The arrangement of Hesperiinae incertae sedis used in this study is to group the genera by their food plants. This is not to suggest that this represents a realistic classification, but where there are similarities that would not be anticipated based on the existing genera groups, they should be evident. In this part, we cover the diverse species whose caterpillars feed on dicotyledons (a term which doesn’t fit current phylogenetic understanding, but is sufficiently precise for our purpose). We follow the generic sequence in Evans (1937) and indicate the genera group of origin of each of the genera treated here.