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Pomasia
Guenée
Type species: psylaria Guenée.
Pomasia is a highly homogenous genus that can be defined clearly on characters
both of facies and of male and female genitalia.
The ground colour of the wings is pale yellow or yellow, with whitish
highlights in some species. The fasciation extends over all the wings, irregular
and reticulate bands of red with grey, leading to a somewhat speckled
appearance. Males of some species have whitish translucent areas in the vicinity
of the posterior angle of the forewing cell (most extreme in P. euryopis Meyrick).
The antennae of both sexes are filiform. The apodemes of the eighth tergite are
elongate as in Carbia and allies, and some Eupithecia (Fig 348).
The male genitalia have the uncus well developed, slender, acute, and
yet there is some sclerotisation of the subscaphium. The valves are rather
crescent-shaped or semicircular, densely setose, with a fold arising from the
base of the costa to the ventral margin beyond its central point, where it often
gives rise to a small flap or spur. The labides are well developed distally
fused, either with the two components still evident (the type species, a species
from Penang (slide 18664) and the first two listed below), or united into a
single curved blade. The base of the sacculus is lobed. The saccus is elongated,
narrow, tapering, with coremata laterally. Many species have eupitheciine
octavals on the eighth sternite. The aedeagus vesica usually has cornuti.
The female has the bursa divided into distinct neck and bulb sections,
each of which can contain a variety of spining.
The genus is diverse in the Oriental tropics, particularly Sundaland,
but has not yet been recorded from the Philippines, Sulawesi or further east.
The old concept of P. vernacularia Guenée proved to represent a complex
of species on dissection. Discrimination of these and association of sexes on
facies characters alone are extremely difficult, and dissection is recommended.
Females sometimes offer stronger diagnostic features than males, hence some
holotypes designated are of this sex. Unfortunately the complex was counted as 'vernacularia' in the field during the Mulu survey, and much of the
material discarded, so indications of habitat preference are not as clear as
they could have been!
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