Alonina Walker 1856
Creators: name: Bartsch, Daniel
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2013
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Lepidoptera
Sesiidae
Alonina

description: Alonina Walker, 1856   
 Type species: Alonina rygchiiformis Walker, 1856: 63, by monotypy.   
Literature. Boisduval 1875 [imprint “1874”]: 464; Hampson 1919: 78; Dalla Torre & Strand 1925: 119; Gaede 1929: 527; Naumann 1971: 12; Fletcher & Nye 1982: 8; Heppner & Duckworth 1981: 42; Vári, Kroon & Krüger 2002: 67; Pühringer & Kallies 2004: 43.  
 Redescription. Medium sized to very large clearwing moths with wingspans from approximately 15 mm to more than 60 mm and sometimes very distinct sexual dimorphism. Head with haustellum usually well developed (weakly sclerotized in A. luteopunctata); labial palpus with first palpomere short, second palpomere slightly upturned and almost twice as long as third one (females of A. fusca with palpomeres 2 and 3 of equal length); palpomeres 1 and 2 dorsally smooth, ventrally rough with somewhat appressed, laterally protruding scales; frons width about 1.4–1.7× the diameter of the eye, slightly rough laterally and with scattered short, hair-like scales; scales of vertex and pericephalic scales hair-like, but rather short; antenna of the male clavate, flagellum somewhat serrate, ciliate, with ciliae longest proximally, lacking at tip (Figs 92–93, 100); female antenna without ciliae; scapus ventrally with a small tuft of hair-like scales. Thorax strong, in males densely mottled with hair-like scales; male abdomen long, spindle-shaped and with well developed anal tuft, female abdomen cylindrical, with small, sometimes reduced anal tuft. Legs strong; mid- and hind tibia as well as first tarsomere of hind leg tufted with long and rough, hair-like scales; lateral spur half as long as mesal one on all spur pairs. Wings with well developed transparent areas, in females sometimes opaque or semitransparent; apical area present, highly variable in width; discal spot of forewing medium wide to narrow, often bordered distally with orange or red, discal spot of hindwing very short and narrow; wing venation (Fig. 85) of forewing with R1 to R3 approximated, R4 and R5 stalked; all veins from stalk of R4/R5 to M3 arise equally spaced from cross vein; CuA1 and CuA2 approximated, arise closely together from cell tornus; hindwing venation of the typical Sesiini type with veins M3 and CuA1 variably stalked.   
 Male genitalia (Figs 109–112). Tegumen narrow; gnathos small, forming two short, down curved hooks; uncus narrow, dorsally with several hairs, ventro-lateral margins densely covered with bristle-like and proximad pointing setae, in lateral view straight or concave, “shoe-shaped”, dorsally fused and ventrally connected to tegumen by a membrane; valva oblong or broad, rectangular, often somewhat upturned, inner surface without crista or other raised structures, medially and distally densely covered with proximad pointing, bristle-like, apically bifurcate setae; juxta narrow, posteriorly wide projected; vinculum with narrow processes vinculi, dorsally fused with tegumen, ventrally forming a short to moderately long saccus; manica with numerous minute spines; phallus long and slender, almost straight, as long or somewhat longer than valva; coecum penis slightly curved, proximally rounded; vesica tubular, proximally slightly bulbous, with a transverse sclerotized structure which is sometimes covered with teeth or thorns, in A. rygchiiformis with long, proximad pointing spines.   
 Female genitalia (Figs 122–123). Papillae anales and segment eight rather short and broad, each with some strong bristles posteriorly; anterior and posterior apophyses nearly of the same length; ostium bursae wide, funnelshaped, located ventro-basally of segment eight; ductus bursae more or less twisted, with rather narrow, straight, well sclerotized antrum forming a round to slightly ovoid bursa copulatrix, without signum.   
 Diagnosis. Species of the genus Alonina are medium sized to large clearwing moths, easily distinguished from all other Sesiini of Southern Africa by the ciliate, rather than pectinate or simple antenna of the male. The male genitalia are characterized by the following putative synapomorphies: (1) uncus “shoe-shaped”, dorsally seamlessly fused with tegumen and in lateral view straight or concave; (2) gnathos forming two symetric, short, down curved hooks (3) setae of valva bristle-like, apically mostly bifurcate, rarely pointed; (4) setae in a distally and medially located, basad pointing arrangement. Members of the genera Felderiola and Monopetalotaxis are superficially similar. They differ by the lack of a functional haustellum, the males moreover by the simple or sometimes pectinate antenna and the strong thorn-like setae of the valva. Several unidentified females in the TMPS may belong to undescribed species of Alonina or represent colour variants of known ones.   
 Composition and distribution. Currently Alonina comprises five species: A. rygchiiformis, A. pyrethra, A. pyrocraspis, A. rufa and A. fusca. The majority of this species is restricted to the southernmost part of the African continent and appear to be associated with the fynbos vegetation of the cap region. Only A. rygchiiformis, which by the structures of the male valva and vesica and the distinct sexual dimorphism has a somewhat isolated position within the genus, occurs also in East Africa.
description: Published as part of Bartsch, Daniel, 2013, Revisionary checklist of the Southern African Sesiini (Lepidoptera: Sesiidae) with description of new species, pp. 1-54 in Zootaxa 3741 (1) on pages 7-8, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3741.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/10099866