A revision of the genus Poloma Walker, 1855 (Lepidoptera, Eupterotidae) with the description of a new genus

Investigations into the four monkey moth species hitherto considered to belong to the genus Poloma Walker, 1855 produced unexpected results. Based on the configurations of the male genitalia, the constituent members of the genus could confidently be grouped into two pairs of species that were perceived not to be congeneric with each other. After examination of all type material and mining locality data from specimens housed in institutional collections as well as online resources, Poloma is fully revised resulting in the description of a new genus, Dracopoloma gen. nov.

Poloma now contains only its type species, P. angulata Walker, 1855 and the allied P. variegata (Rothschild, 1917), while the other two species are placed in the new genus: Dracopoloma castanaea (Aurivillius, 1901) comb. nov. and D. nigromaculata (Aurivillius, 1893) comb. nov. All four species are restricted to southern Africa and their distribution patterns as well as phenology are briefly discussed.