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Polydesma Boisduval
Type
species: umbricola Boisduval,
Mauritius.
Synonyms: Anthemoisia
Blanchard
(unnecessary replacement name for Polydesma);
Anthemoessa
Agassiz
(unnecessary emendation of Anthemoisia); Anodapha Moore
(unnecessary replacement name for Polydesma);
Trichopolydesma
Berio
(type species collutrix Geyer, S. Africa).
The
genus was revised by Berio (1971), but Poole (1989) did not recognise Trichopolydesma Berio as distinct. The facies of
all species is similar to that described below for the Bornean representative.
The species are relatively delicately built, with wings rather deep. The pattern
of fore- and hindwings is similar, unlike in Pandesma.
The male antennae are ciliate, and the legs of that sex are generally tufted
with scales and hair pencils. The third segment of the labial palps is short.
The male
abdomen has the eighth segment unmodified apart from the angularly concave
distal margin to the sternite. The uncus is slender with a slight apical spine;
a scaphium is present. The juxta is of the inverted ‘Y’ type, its distal
part relatively broad. The valves are robust, narrowing to a slender, slightly
helical apical part. Just basal to this narrowing is a massive bundle of very
long, large, blade-like setae. The aedeagus is long and slender, and the vesica
is small but relatively convolute with zones of scobination.
The
female genitalia (umbricola) have the ostium situated just above a small lobe at
the apex of the seventh sternite. The sternite is shorter than the tergite, the
posterior corners of which are produced round also to converge at the ostium.
The ductus is very long, sclerotised, slightly flexed at the distal end where it
joins a pyriform corpus bursae set asymmetrically on it. This is generally
scobinate but has an irregular field and band of longer spines running round it
subbasally.
The type
species is found in Africa and the western Indian Ocean, and the genus is
predominantly African. Indo-Australian representation consists of the species
below and P.
scriptilis Guenée
from the Indian Subregion.
Larval
host plants are predominantly from the Leguminosae (see below).
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