REVISION OF AFRICAN SPECIES OF CLEORA 7 



McDunnough in 1920. The greater part of the Indo-Australian species of Chora 

 were treated by Prout in two revisions, 1929a and 1937. The species previously 

 included in Carecomotis were revised by Fletcher in 1953. The Ethiopian species 

 of Chora then known were treated by Janse in 1932 under the name Neochora. 



Affinities. Chora is closely related to Ascotis Hiibner (1825 : 313), which is 

 represented in southern Europe by A. sehnaria sehnaria (Denis & Schiffermuller), 

 by sehnaria reciprocaria (Walker) in continental Africa and by further subspecies in 

 India, Ceylon, China and Japan. The neuration is almost identical to that of Chora, 

 but R% sometimes anastomoses briefly with R3. In Ascotis the male antenna is 

 ciliate and in the male genitalia the uncus is short and shallowly bifurcate ; in the 

 female genitalia the sterigma is weakly developed and the presence of a signum 

 separates it from the Ethiopian species of Chora ; the characteristic shape of the 

 signum (with the anterior edge toothed, often strongly) at each corner, separates it 

 from the remaining species of Chora. 



Also closely related to Chora is the genus Alois Curtis (1826 : 113) occurring in 

 the Palaearctic and Indo-Australian regions. Though the neuration is identical 

 with that of Chora, there are a number of other structural differences which clearly 

 separate it. In the males of species examined (except A. gomphica Wehrli and 

 A. flavolinearia Leech) the pectinations of the male arise from the apical edge of 

 each pectinate segment and are unsealed. In the male genitalia the juxta is two- 

 pronged, the valve has the ventral margin membranous and unadorned, but with a 

 process at mid-valve arising from mid-dorsal margin, and a characteristically 

 halberd-shaped cornutus on the vesica. In those examples of the female genitalia 

 of Alois so far examined, there are two weakly spiculate signa on the bursa copulatrix. 



Hypopaipis Guenee (1862 : 29) was erected for H. terebraria Guenee and H. 

 per for aria Guenee, since shown by Vinson (1938 : 38) to be synonymous ; terebraria 

 was placed by Vinson in Chora. Hypopaipis terebraria and H. antemelaria Mabille 

 (1893), island endemics on Reunion and Mauritius respectively, have male antennae 

 of the cinctaria type, with two pairs of scaled pectinations from each pectinate 

 segment, but in the structure of the genitalia of both sexes these species are closely 

 related to Ascotis sehnaria and they have been transferred to the genus Ascotis. 

 Hypopaipis terebraria Guenee is here selected for the first time as type-species of 

 Hypopaipis, which becomes a junior synonym of Ascotis. Syn. n. 



Prout (1938 : 154) erected the genus Colochora for 32 species from the Ethiopian 

 region, which probably belong to two or more genera. The species agreeing in 

 structure with the type-species of Colochora, Alois ansorgei Warren, show some 

 similarity in habitus to that of Chora, but structurally are closely related to Ascotis. 

 In the male the neuration is identical with that of Chora, but the pectinations of the 

 antennae arise from the base of each segment and are unsealed ; in the females of 

 those species of Colochora available for study, veins R\ and R2 in the fore wing are 

 long-stalked. In the male genitalia the uncus is usually very short, squat and 

 triangular and the form of the valve in the male and that of the signum in the 

 female of those species available for study are similar to those of Ascotis. 



The genus Scotorythra Butler (1883 : 177), in which Zimmerman (1958 : 1-2) has 



