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Chorodna Walker
Type species: erebusaria Walker, Himalaya.
Synonyms: Medasina Moore, (type species strixaria Moore,
Oriental tropics, New Guinea) syn. n.
Chorodna as recognised here includes only those large Medasina species
allied to strixaria and sharing the diagnostic features listed below.
Genera such as Darisa Moore, Lassaba Moore (See
Lassaba Moore Gen.rev), Callocasta
Swinhoe, Deinotrichia Warren, Sinameda Warren and Uliura Warren
are best treated as distinct.
Facies features common to all Chorodna are a broad, pale costal
zone to the forewing that takes up at least half the area of the wing, and pale
postmedials close to the margin, that on the hindwing being distinctly angled in
the position of M2. On the underside these submarginals bound marginal pale
areas.
The male has no forewing fovea. The antennae are long, narrowly
bipectinate, the pectinations tapering away at three quarters. The abdomen has a
setal comb on sternite 3. In the genitalia a number of features combine to
define the genus: the costal margin is lobed subbasally, with a tuft of hairlike
setae arising from the lobe; the interior margin of the costa has a subapical
setose lobe or projection; the sacculus has an elongate process interiorly that
sometimes bears short, robust setae; the juxta extends as a protrusive, narrow
tongue or spine.
The female genitalia (strixaria) have the ovipositor lobes small,
truncated-acute, darkly sclerotised, the apodemes twice as long, obtusely
flexed centrally. The ostium has an ovate sclerotisation set in a broad pocket
ringed narrowly with crinkled sclerotisation. The ductus is short, sclerotised,
laterally scrolled, the bursa long, basally sclerotised and slightly rugose,
broader distally but without a distinct ‘neck’ section. There is no signum.
The strikingly patterned Chorodna group does not extend east of
Sundaland and is most diverse on the Asian mainland. The Medasina group
is possibly most speciose in Sundaland, but only C. strixaria comb. n.
extends east of Borneo, occurring in Sulawesi, the Philippines, the Moluccas and
New Guinea (ssp. telepompa Prout stat. n., with genitalia much as in
typical strixaria). M. strixaria has not been recorded from Borneo: it
can be distinguished by the spatulate distal process to the valve costa and the
dense short setation on the saccular process.
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