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Symmimetis Turner
Type species: muscosa Turner, Australia.
Synonyms: Neoscelis Hampson (type species rivula Hampson =
cristata Warren, Sri Lanka) praeocc, replaced by Neoscelidia Joannis.
The genus lacks the sexual dimorphism seen in the preceding genera,
though the forewing postmedial tends to be more strongly angled, less rounded in
males. The fasciation is generally rather obscure, dark reddish brown or brown
though the anterior two thirds of the marginal zone of the hindwing exterior to
the postmedial is marked distinctively paler in most species. The underside is
more clearly marked with rather diffuse, curved, alternating pale and dark brown
bands, the postmedial of which can be angled. The apodemes of the second tergite
are somewhat enlarged as in Onagrodes.
The male genitalia are characterised by an extended saccus that supports
a pair of small coremata subterminally. The aedeagus is short, and the vesica
contains several moderate to large cornuti. There are also coremata just distal
to the eighth segment, itself slightly modified but without octavals. The fifth
tergite has an anterior brown edging and associated brown disc-like structures
laterally.
The female has the ductus relatively short and the bursa moderate to
large tending to be broadly sclerotised and/or spined over the basal half to two
thirds.
Bell (MS) described the early stages of S. cristata Warren in S.
India. The larva is small, quite black, shining, cylindrical, with an orange
head and anal prolegs. There are well separated transverse folds on each
segment.
The larvae sit on the edges of the leaves of the host-plant resting in a
highly looped posture (in which they fall to the ground if disturbed), generally
more than one to a leaf, feeding on young leaves. Pupation is in a cell of open
silk web under a leaf at the edge which has been rolled over.
The host-plant is Aglaia (Meliaceae).
The genus is distributed throughout the Indo-Australian tropics but the
species are never common, and a number of taxa related to muscosa and eristata
remain to be investigated in the Oriental tropics and Sundaland. There are
two endemic species in Fiji (Robinson, 1975).
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