loU 



REVISION OF AUSTRALIAN LEPWOPTERA'—HYPSIDAE, 

 ANTHELIDAE. 



By A. Jepferis Turner, M.D., F.E.S. 



Fam. HYPSIDAE. 



Tongue present. Head, thorax, abdomen, and femora smooth. Forewings 

 with 1 absent, areole present, 8 and 9 stalked from areole, 5 approximated to 4 

 at origin. Hindwings with frenulum present, 1 absent, disooceUulars angled, 

 5 arising from below angle and approximated to 4, 6 and 7 usually stalked, 

 8 approximated and connected with cell before middle, or shortly anastomosing 

 •with cell at ^ or J. 



A small family, represented in Australia by fourteen species, all of \yhich 

 have been well described by Mr. Meyrick, but there has been some confusion in 

 the synonymy, and some of the names adopted by him must be altered. I 

 formerly substituted At:ota Hb. for the long-recognised Ili/psa Hb., on the 

 ground that the former name occurs first in his Verzeichniss, but I now con- 

 sider that this change was unnecessary, and that it wouhl be better to regard 

 Htipsa as a nomen conservandum. 



Undoubtedly the Hyjisidae are allied to the Lipariihie, the presence of a 

 tongue and the general smooth scaling being the only definite distinctions, but 

 it is impossible to merge the two gi'oups unless we are prepared for much larger 

 amalgamations. In some genera, such as Niictemera and the European Calli- 

 morpha, there is a short anastomosis of the hindwing subcostal with the cell 

 rather near its base (about 1), and this brings the family into very close re- 

 lationship to the Arctiadae, which I have no doubt is a direct derivative. It 

 might, indeed, be a more natural arrangement to restrict the Hypsidae to those 

 genera in which the hindwing subcostal does not anastomose, and to remove 

 CalUmorpha, yijetemera and Argina to the Arctiadae. It is difficult, if not 

 impossible, to separate the Noctuidae from the Arctiadae by any definite charac- 

 ter, but if the Xolidae are, as Hampson suggests, descended from the Sarro- 

 thripinae section of the Noctuidae, they must be regarded as a distinct family 

 approximated to the Arctiadae by convergence. We may illustrate our concep- 

 tion of these relationships by the following diagi-am : — 



Arctiadae Nolidae. 



Hypsidae Noctuidae Liparidae. 



Although the Australian genera of this family all retain the primitive areole. 

 it is possible that exotic genera exist, in which it has been lost. 



•Continued from These Proceedings, vol. xlv., 1920 (1921), p. 499. 



