Miscellaneous Genera VI
View Image Gallery of Miscellaneous Genera VI

Marapana Moore

Type species: raralis Walker (= pulverata Guenée), Sri Lanka.

Species in this genus are delicate, characterised by extremely long labial palps. Most of this length is within the second segment, which is longer than the head and thorax combined and has a crest of scales dorsally. The third segment is about one fifth the length of the second, usually angled upwards from it, with scaling dorsally and ventrally over its basal part. The legs in both sexes are long, slender, without conspicuous scale tufts. The male antennae are filiform and finely ciliate. The wings are uniform, shades of medium brown, the only conspicuous fasciation being the straight postmedials. The hindwing has a distinct angle on the margin at CuA2. The lower clypeofrons is unscaled.

In the male abdomen, the eighth sternite is broader than long, unmodified, but the tergite is much narrower, with apodemes that are moderately separated, unsplayed in the type species but slightly so in the new species. In the genitalia, the tegumen has interior lobes ventrally on each side. The valves have a strong and complete costa that terminates apically with a loose corona of setae. The sacculus terminates well short of this and has an apical spur in the type species. There is a conspicuous digitate process between the costa and sacculus. The juxta is a broad plate that has a slight central ridge or flange in the vertical plane. The aedeagus is slender, the vesica narrow, with a small cornutus distally.

In the female genitalia, the seventh and eighth segments are rather compressed together, the ostium more associated with the anterior margin of the latter. The ductus is moderate, sclerotised, the bursa variable in shape as described under the new species below.

The relationships of the genus are unclear.
Neogabara Wileman & West (p. 450) has similar valve structure, but differs considerably in other abdominal features in both sexes. Externally there are general, but possibly superficial similarities in build and wing facies.

<<Back >>Forward <<Return to Content Page



Copyright © Southdene Sdn. Bhd. All rights reserved.