TRIBE OPHIUSINI
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Thyas Hübner

Type species: honesta Hübner.

Synonym: Lagoptera Guenée (type species: elegans Hoeven = juno Dalman; see Nye, 1975).

This genus shares a larval characteristic, a dorsal ellipse on A5, with Artena, as discussed on p. 41, but has a different and characteristic forewing facies. The submarginal is set much further from the margin, and can be much more obscure than the other fasciae. A diagnostic feature is an enlarged reniform that is variable in expression, with pale and blackened forms both occurring. The hindwings and abdomen are usually red or yellow with black or brown bands or patches, and two species, T. juno and T. javanica Gaede, have a medial blue band as in Artena.

The male abdomen has the eighth segment unmodified except for short, broad, well separated apodemes on the tergite and a shallowly concave posterior margin to the sternite. In the genitalia, the uncus is entire or posteriorly bifid, and is associated with a scaphium. The structure of the tegumen and valves is also diverse and offers no definitive features for the genus. The juxta is of the inverted ‘Y’ type. The aedeagus vesica is also diverse in form, e.g.: small, with a few groups of spines in juno; long, with diverticula and generally scobinate in honesta.

The female genitalia are also diverse in structure, but the ostium is associated with and covered by an antevaginal plate from the seventh sternite, small and only slightly bilobed in javanica Gaede, more extensive and strongly bilobed in juno, and completely divided in honesta. The ductus is variable in length but always sclerotised. The corpus bursae varies in size but is always corrugated and scobinate.

The genus (see Poole (1989), who placed
Lagoptera as a synonym of Thyas) contains a number of species, mostly widespread, and extends throughout the Indo-Australian tropics.

The larvae have a wider host range than either
Artena or most Ophiusa, the pupae lack a powdery bloom, and the adults are often noted as fruit-piercing pests.

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