Re: What is a cyclopides ?

Cyclopides was an old name for several South African Skippers (defined as "Any of numerous butterflies of the families Hesperiidae and Megathymidae, having a hairy mothlike body, hooked tips on the antennae, and a darting flight pattern") of the family Hesperiidae. Unfortunately, "Cyclopides" actually referred to many different skippers of the otherwise unrelated genuses Acleros, Ampittia, Astictopterus, Kedestes, Metisella, and Tsitana. Only one of these species, the "Bush Hopper" Ampittia dioscorides camertes (originally Cyclopides camertes) was found outside of subsaharan Africa, although dioscorides are found only in India, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka. Since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was well known for inventing species in some of his other books, it is likely that he liked the name, without knowing that the only Cyclopides in England were mounted in the collections of well traveled lepidopterists.