GENERA OF AFRICAN LYCAKNIDAE 



253 



Genus BREPHIDIUM Scudder 



Brephidium Scudder, 1876, Bull. Buffalo Soc. nut. Sci. 3 : 123 ; Swanepoel, 1953 : 81. Type- 

 species : Lvcaena exilis Boisduval (a Sonoran species) by original designation. 

 Cupido Schrank (partim) ; Aurivillius, 1 Xq8 : 369 ; 1025 : 4 73- 

 Lvcaena Fabricius (partim) ; Murray, 11)35 : 150. 



Eyes smooth ; palpi long, second segment ascending, long, laterally compressed, clothed 

 with white scales and bearing below long erect black bristles, third segment horizontal, slender, 

 acuminate ; antennae slender, about half the length of the costa, club oval, flattened, well 

 differentiated ; thorax clothed below with long white silky hair ; _J fore leg, femur clothed 

 below with long white hair, tibia about as long as femur, tarsus unsegmented, finely spinose 

 below. 



Wing shape. Fore wing subtriangular, apex rounded, outer margin convex ; hind wing 

 oval, no tail. 



Wing venation (Text-fig. 342). Fore wing with 1 1 veins, 1 1 reduced to a short vein running 

 from the upper edge of the cell to 12. 



Male genitalia (Text-fig. Zl8). As Bethune Maker has already pointed out (1014, Trans, cut. 

 Sac. Land. 47 : 330), the structure of the J genitalia of species of Brephidium differs considerably 

 from that of all the other known Lycaenidae and it is difficult to establish the homologies of all 

 the parts. Directly fused to the vinculum there is, on the posterior margin dorsally, an un- 

 paired process of which the apex is deeply divided into four teeth, which may correspond to the 

 uncus ; on either side of this process the two lobes of the tegumen take an abnormal form ; 

 in the mount from which the figure was drawn they are spread out and flattened, but in situ 

 they are convex and situated laterally ; parallel to and arising from the external edge of these 

 lobes there is a long process of which the rounded apex bears live strong rigid bristles which 

 look like sharp-pointed thorns ; vinculum narrow ; the two slender arms of the lower 

 fultura are fused, not to the base of the valves, but at two-thirds from their base, valves small, 

 oval, with rounded apices, widely fused to each other along their lower edges ; internal portion 

 of penis bulbous, external portion beak-like, the two sharp points of the " beak " with finely 

 serrate edges ; tegumen clothed with long hair, especially on Us anterior edge, short fine hair 

 on the apices of the valves. 



Besides exilis, the genus Brephidium includes another Sonoran species, B. pseudofea 

 Morrison and the S. African B. metophis. 



The male genitalia of B. metophis Wallengren (Text-fig. 219) are of the same type 



Fig. 218. Brephidium exilis (Boisduval), q* genitalia. 



