Macaretaera hesperis Meyrick, 1886

Rao, B. Sumit Kumar & Sivaperuman, Chandrakasan, 2025, Contribution to the knowledge of Pyraloid moths (Lepidoptera, Pyraloidea) from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India, Journal of Insect Biodiversity and Systematics 11 (1), pp. 129-149 : 136-137

Macaretaera hesperis Meyrick, 1886 ( Figs 2J, 6E)

Macaretaera hesperis Meyrick, 1886:255 . TL: Fiji.

Trichoptychodes delicata Swinhoe, 1894:207 . TL: India (Cherrapunji).

Material examined. 1♀, India, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, North Andaman Tal Tikrey , 10-III-2019, coll. B. Sumit Kumar Rao (Reg. No. ZSI / ANRC /T-16595) . 1♀, India, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Middle Andaman, APWD Guest house-Rangat, 06-VIII-2019, coll. B. Sumit Kumar Rao (Reg. No. ZSI / ANRC / T/17332 ) .

Diagnosis. Wingspan 21 mm. Forewings with basally with rufous yellow colour, medial area with a white suffusion, and a triangular narrow patch extending from two-thirds of the costa to near the tornus. Marginal band rufous yellow, fringes yellow. Hindwings with a white ground colour and a dark terminal band from the apex to M3. In the female genitalia, the papillae anales are elliptical, the anterior apophysis is double the size of the posterior apophysis, and the colliculum is lightly sclerotized. The ductus bursae is narrow, corpus bursae is sac-shaped, short, broadly attached to the ductus bursae, and lacks signa.

Distribution. Australia (Queensland), Fiji, India (Kerela, Assam, Meghalaya, Cherrapunji), Papua New Guinea, Vietnam ( Hampson, 1896; de Joannis, 1930; Mathew & Menon, 1984; Gupta, 1994; Joshi et al., 2021).

Remarks. The discovery of this monotypic genus in the Andaman Islands marks a significant range extension, previously documented in India only from Northeast India and the state of Kerala. This new record confirms its presence in the Indo-Myanmar region, highlighting the biogeographic connectivity between these areas and the potential for further undiscovered diversity in the Andaman archipelago. Representative individuals of this species were observed in traps placed in the secondary forest’s margins.