Niphopyralis is a genus of snout moths of the subfamily Spilomelinae in the family Crambidae.
Description
Caterpillars
The reports on larvae are somewhat divergent, depending on the species and the condition of the larvae (fresh versus alcohol-preserved): The fully-grown caterpillar of Niphopyralis myrmecophila (according to material preserved in alcohol) is approximately 14 mm in length, 4.4 mm thick at its largest diameter, and completely colourless, with the spiracles visible as fine, shiny colourless dots. The larval body is naked, hardly flattened, markedly tapered anteriorly and posteriorly, with all segments bulging out almost in a physogastric way. The head is small and prognathous. The thoracal legs are well developed, the prolegs are strongly reduced, and only at high magnification the single circle of crochets and the small papilla are visible; the anal prolegs are completely reduced, but this may be due to the investigated larvae being in the process of pupation.
The fully-grown caterpillar of Niphopyralis aurivillii are 6 to 7.5 mm long and 1.5 mm thick, and is tapers only slightly towards the ends. The body has a yellow-white colour, with head and pronotum somewhat darker. The entire body is diffusely covered with long, soft, colourless chaetae. The head is about two thirds the breadth of the pronotum, almost twice as long as broad, and tapered towards the front. The two epicranial halves are almost triangular and encompass a large tongue-shaped frontal plate that reaches posteriad to the occipital opening. Each side of the head bears six ocelli, with the upper five in a curved line, and the sixth separate more ventral; the latter ocellus is not pigmented like the others. The larval antennae are consist of three merons. The mandibles long and conspicuously pointed in young larvae, more blunt in older larvae. The labium carries a well-developed spinneret. The thoracal and abdominal segments are weakly chitinised. The somewhat stronger chitinised pronotum is about twice as long as the meso- and metathorax. Thoracal legs are well-developed. Abdominal segments 1 to 7 are almost uniform, the eighth and ninth narrower, and the anal plate rounded. The four pairs of prolegs on abdominal segments 3 to 6 are well-developed, with a single, entire circle of crochets; half-grown larvae have 11 to 14 crochets, fully grown ones up to 25. The well-developed anal prolegs have an angularly curved frontal row of 11 crochets in falf-grown larvae and more in older ones.
Pupae
The pupa is stout and slightly flattened. In Niphopyralis aurivillii, the pupa is 6 to 6.5 mm long and 2 mm broad, and of a light brown-yellow colour. The imago emerges from a mouthlike cleft on one end of the cocoon.
Imagines
Imagines of Niphopyralis exhibit an unusual, somewhat Limacodidae-like habitus. Furthermore, they lack a proboscis, have reduced palpi, and the males exhibit bipectinate antennae, a mix of characters that for a long time hindered their correct placement among Lepidoptera (see Systematics).
The wingspan ranges from 12 to 22 mm, and the males being smaller than the females. The lower two thirds of the male antennae are bipectinate with ciliated teeth approximately as long as the antenna’s breadth. The compound eyes are large and rounded. A proboscis and ocelli are absent, and the labial palps are small. The body and wings are whitish to cream, with the front wing upper side usually exhibiting a diffuse wing pattern, whereas the underside has a dark brown colour.
DNA sequence data
DNA barcode data for different, mostly unidentified species of Niphopyralis are stored in the Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD), although only part of the sequences are publicly accessible.