Hippotion exclamationis Fawcett, 1915

UNPUBLISHED STAT. REV. Synonymized with Hippotion roseipennis by Rothschild & Jordan, 1916, Novit. zool. 23: 262. Implicitly reinstated as a species by Jordan, 1930, Novit. zool. 36: 5. Resynonymized with Hippotion roseipennis by Pinhey, 1962, Hawk Moths of Central and Southern Africa: 106. Reinstated as a species by d'Abrera, 1987, Sphingidae Mundi: 192. Resynonymized with Hippotion roseipennis by Kitching & Cadiou, 2000, Hawkmoths of the world: 48. Kitching & Cadiou (2000: Note 256) (STI 18788) discussed the status of Hippotion exclamationis beginning with Carcasson (1968) (STI 17169), who synonymized it and its subspecies, Hippotion exclamationis austrinum, as individual forms of a very variable Hippotion roseipennis that occurred throughout east Africa, from SW Ethiopia to Natal. (He apparently overlooked the third subspecies, Hippotion exclamationis robur, but would doubtless have considered this to be an individual form too.) D'Abrera (1987) (STI 17382) disagreed, arguing that Hippotion exclamationis was a good species with three forms: exclamationis, austrinum and robur. He gave four forewing pattern characters to distinguish Hippotion exclamationis from Hippotion roseipennis, namely: a basal, sagittate mark; a triangular, brown patch on the posterior margin at the tornus; an elongate and gently angled, distal, brown streak below the apex; and a discal spot always obscured by a larger brown shade. However, Kitching & Cadiou (2000) argued that although these features work for those specimens illustrated by d'Abrera (1987), they were all inconsistent when the long series in the NHMUK was examined. Consequently, they found no justification to consider Hippotion exclamationis as a distinct species and resynonymized it, austrinum and robur once again as individual forms of Hippotion roseipennis. However, all these authors overlooked a critical character given by Jordan (1930: 5) (STI 18656) in the original description of Hippotion exclamationis austrinum, where he stated, “H. exclamationis resembles H. roseipennis Butl. 1882, but the discal line of the forewing, instead of joining the apical streak, is anteriorly curved towards the costa”. A re-examination of the specimens in NHMUK (H. roseipennis, n = 83; H. exclamationis, n = 43) has shown that this feature is indeed consistent in separating the two taxa and consequently Hippotion exclamationis is here considered once again to be a valid species. However, the colour patterns of its erstwhile three subspecies intergrade and overlap and so they are not recognized as valid here.