NORTHEAST BRAZIL: Maranhao
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These provisional checklists of the different Saturniidae subfamilies/tribes have been largely created by going through the information provided in the four great Saturniidae works by the late Dr. Claude Lemaire of France: Attacidae (1978), Arsenurinae (1980), Ceratocampinae (1988) and Hemileucinae (2002). Dr. Lemaire's confirmations for Alagoas are indicated with an asterisk (*).
I have made many of my own interpolations from those works, particularly if a species was described from surrounding Brazilian states or other nearby countries with a similar biome (Tropical Rain Forest in the west; cerrado/savanna in the east; grassland north central; some transitional palm forest in north east ). Those interpolations are followed by "?" to indicate I have no confirmed reports, but I anticipate the species has a range including the state of Maranhao.
The Brazilian states in the North Region have not been sampled for Saturniidae nearly as well as those states in the South, Southeast, and Center-West Regions. I suspect there are many omissions in these listings, and there would also be many omissions in the Northeast Region which is also poorly sampled as of this writing, February 10, 2016.
Many new species have been described since the publications of Dr. Lemaire works and much effort has been made and continues to be made with revisions to the lists. Those species recently described in the Entomo-Satsphingia Journals: 2008-2015, by Brechlin & Meister have an (e) following their names.
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"The northern portion of the state is a heavily forested plain traversed by numerous rivers, occupied by the eastern extension of the tropical moist forests of Amazonia. The Tocantins-Araguaia-Maranhão moist forests occupy the northwestern portion of the state, extending from the Pindaré River west into neighboring Pará state. The north-central and northeastern portion of the state, extending eastward into northern Piauí, is home to the Maranhão Babaçu forests, a degraded tropical moist forest ecoregion dominated by the Babaçu palm. Much of the forest has been cleared.
"The southern portion of the state belong to the lower terraces of the great Brazilian Highlands, occupied by the Cerrado savannas. Several plateau escarpments, including the Chapada das Mangabeiras, Serra do Tiracambu, and Serra das Alpercatas, mark the state's northern margin and the outlines of river valleys.
"The climate is hot, and the year is divided into a wet and dry season, extreme humidity being characteristic of the former. The heat, however, is greatly modified on the coast by the south-east trade winds."
I suspect that most of the species found in Para would also be present in Maranhao, but there is little documentation from Maranhao thus far.
There is also the potential for some higher elevation species in forested portions of the highlands.
All new additions based on Entomo-Satsphingia Journals 2008-2015 are followed by (e).
Arsenura sylla maranhensis probably is the appropriate name for any sylla-like species taken in Maranhao.
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