Preliminary results from Africa indicated the presence of more than one species of Hypsipyla in Khaya fruit in one plantation, and during the second year more emphasis was given to elucidating this situation, including a field trip to Ghana. Material collected in Ghana necessitated study of fresh Hypsipyla material from Madagascar after researchers confirmed the species in West Africa differed from H. scabrusculella.
Now that material from Madagascar has become available, a comprehensive taxonomic revision of the genus Hypsipyla in the old world will be published, with a user-friendly key to enable identification by non-specialists.
The surprising results fully justify a taxonomic revision of so-called Hypsipyla robusta in the Old World, and they confirm that this task could only be done in collaboration with field scientists providing reared material. They also underlined the paucity of taxonomically useful characters in Hypsipyla, explaining the taxonomic uncertainties in such an important group despite earlier attempts at resolving their identity. Taxonomic decisions were all initially based on genitalia morphology in both sexes and then corroborated at the molecular level.
Summary of taxonomic results:
1. H. robusta was confirmed as the same species from Sri Lanka throughout India and Southeast Asia to the Philippines, New Guinea, Australia and Vanuatu.
2. In Australia the populations of H. robusta on Toona ciliata and Xylocarpus spp. are not genetically separated.
3. The population of the pest Hypsipyla near robusta in Ghana is morphologically and genetically distinct from H. robusta and is currently being described as a new species.
4. A second Hypsipyla species in Ghana, reared from fruit and bark but so far not from shoots of Khaya, has been confirmed and identified as Hypsipyla albipartalis (Hampson), described from the Congo.
5. The female type of H. scabrusculella Ragonot gave insufficient information to establish whether the species was different from both H. robusta and the pest Hypsipyla in Ghana. A sustained effort to obtain material from Madagascar has only recently been successful, with molecular studies confirming that H. scabrusculella is a distinct species and enabling description of the new species from Ghana.
6. The types of H. elachistalis Hampson, H. rotundipex Hampson, H. debilis Caradja, H. swezeyi Tams and a paratype of H. ereboneura Meyrick have been examined and now confirmed that all five species do not belong to the genus Hypsipyla.
7. Larvae of two unknown species of Catopyla Bradley, a genus close to Hypsipyla initially described from Nigeria, have been found in fruit of Khaya anthotheca in Malawi and in fruit of Chukrasia tabularis in Thailand. Both species have conspicuous, black and white ringed larvae, very different from Hypsipyla, and seem to be restricted to feeding in meliaceous fruit.
With reliable taxonomic information about the Hypsipyla species in Africa and Asia finally available, successful biological and integrated pest control will now be possible. Knowledge about species identity will allow well-informed evaluation and comparison of research results and transfer of parasites and pathogens.