Miscellaneous Genera V.
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Mecodina Guenée

Type species: lanceola Guenée, Bangladesh.

Synonyms:
Araeognatha Hampson (type species: umbrosa Hampson, Sri Lanka); Boethantha Walker (type species bisignata Walker, Timor I.); Seneratia Moore (type species praecipua Walker, Sri Lanka).

The synonymy above follows Poole (1989) and Nielsen
et al. (1996), but might also include Psimada where, apart from the unusual margins to the valves of the genitalia, several features of the male abdomen are shared with the type species of Mecodina. Certainly any future detailed revision of Mecodina should take in Psimada.

The general colour is usually a violet-grey, often somewhat brownish, with darker fasciation, usually irregular, crenulate, but sometimes more patterned as in
M. lanceola, where the forewings are unusually narrow. Most species have a triangular, trapezoidal or more irregular dark patch on the forewing costa adjacent and basal to the submarginal. Unlike in the Parallelia complex of the Ophiusini, this is not bounded on its basal side by the postmedial except in albodentata Swinhoe and close relatives. Some species have a corresponding but more irregular dark mark associated with the submarginal at the hindwing dorsum. The male antennae are ciliate, and can be very long, extending to or beyond the subapical costal patch in the related type species of Boethantha and Seneratia. The male legs are not conspicuously scaled, though there may be small tibial crests.

The male abdomen has variations of the framed corematous theme in the eighth segment: relatively elaborate in
lanceola and Boethantha; the sclerites rather rectangular, bilobed distally in albodentata and relatives; more typical in Araeognatha. Shared features of the male genitalia are: the complex articulation of vinculum and tegumen; simple, unornamented, paddle-like valves; a large and convolute aedeagus vesica, usually with scobination that may become enlarged with fields of tooth-like cornuti as in Psimada.

In the female genitalia, the seventh sternite is slightly reduced, but the ostium is associated with the eighth segment. The ductus may be slightly funnel-like at the ostium but is generally narrow and unsclerotised. The bursa is ovate, pyriform or elongate and has the ductus seminalis arising from a small, slightly coiled appendix near its base. It may have general scobination, but several species have a long scobinate band in the more distal part, sometimes ringing it obliquely (e.g.
Araeognatha).

The genus is found throughout the Old World tropics and extends into the Oriental subtropicals.

The larvae of several species have been reared, and tend to have fully developed prolegs as described for two species below. These feed on Apocynaceae, Moraceae and Meliaceae. Miyata (1983) and Robinson
et al. (2001) record other species as feeding on Durio (Bombacaceae), Ficus (Moraceae), Nephelium (Sapindaceae), Theobroma (Sterculiaceae), and Ichnocarpus and Trachelospermum (Apocynaceae).

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