A major obstacle in the study of Archipini has been the lack of taxonomically useful characters in the genitalia. For example, males of many Clepsis species and females of many Argyrotaenia species are virtually indistinguishable from their congeners. Compounding this is the presence of marked sexual dimorphism in some genera, making reliable association between sexes difficult, if not impossible based on morphology alone. Historically, much emphasis has been placed on forewing pattern and geographic distribution in diagnoses. However, we have found that though often subtle, there are features in the genitalia of both sexes that are useful for reliably identifying species. In females, the shape of the papillae anales is often discounted as being too variable to be useful; however, the opposite may be true. In fact, in some species of Argyrotaenia, the shape of the papillae anales is one of the most useful features in identification. In addition, the capitulum and signum are also very informative and usually consistent within a species. For males, shape of the valvae, phallus, and uncus are usually consistent in shape within species. In addition to these structures, we have also found the shape of the terminal plate of the gnathos and width of the presaccular gap (defined below) to be particularly informative.
A putative synapomorphy for Archipini is the presence of a well-developed uncus with apicoventral setae (“uncus brush” sensu Horak 1984) in the males, although this appears to be present in at least two other lineages as well (Epitymbiini, Ceracini) (Horak 1984). Most, but not all, females possess a prominent blade- or sickle-shaped signum. The tribe, as it is currently defined, is polyphyletic, composed of several derived and plesiomorphic lineages and will require careful work to render into monophyletic entities (Horak 1984, 1999). The circumscription of Archipini is an important one to consider, for both phylogenetic and economic reasons, but resolution of this problem is beyond the scope of the present paper, so we refer the reader to Horak (1984, 1999) for further information.
It is the presence of such a blade- or sickle-shaped signum in the Mictopsichia group (Chamaepsichia, Compsocommosis, Mictocommosis, Mictopsichia, Nexosa, Rubropsichia) that has resulted in their assignment to Archipini (Razowski 2009; Heppner and Bae 2015a, b). Prior to this, they were included in Glyphipterigidae (Meyrick 1912, 1920, 1921, 1932), Hilarographini (Tortricidae, Chlidanotinae) (Diakonoff 1977), or treated as a new tribe (Brown 2005). We find the placement of the Mictopsichia group of genera in Archipini to be questionable, as not all these genera possess the typical archipine signum. Although superficially similar in wing pattern, the development, shape, and presence/absence of important male genitalic structures vary wildly among these genera, leading us to believe that this group is an artificial assemblage of several unrelated diurnal lineages with convergent wing patterns.
Nevertheless, in the present work, we include this group for continuity, recognizing that they likely belong elsewhere and may represent several different unrelated taxa. Before correct tribal assignments for members of the Mictopsichia group can be determined, the precise composition of these genera will require resolution. Hence, we treat species of this group herein according to current generic concepts, as describing new genera for mostly non-Caribbean species is beyond the scope of this paper.
