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Cosmophila Boisduval
Gen. rev.
Type
species: xanthindyma Boisduval,
Mauritius, Réunion = flava
Fabricius.
Synonyms: Deinopalpus
Holland
(type species africana Holland,
West Africa = leona
Schaus);
Deremma
Walker
(type species simulatrix Walker,
Sierra Leone).
Definition
of this genus has been provided under Anomis on
p. 221, with the caveat that some of the species tentatively assigned to it may
prove to be better placed in Rusicada where the African fauna and the distribution of
characters amongst the species has been more extensively surveyed than has been
possible here. The species guttanivis Walker
may be a case in point, as discussed below.
The core
group of Cosmophila was reviewed by Tams (1924a) and is essentially
defined by: the contrasting yellow and grey of the forewing facies (also in scitipennis
Walker); sclerotised processes from the
interior of the valves; a well developed and complex sterigma around the ostium
of the female. The bursa contains a signum consisting of a single curved spine,
but a similar feature is present in Molopa (doubled),
Gonitis
and
Lineopalpa
horsfieldi Guenée, so the polarity of this character is unclear. The larvae
of two of the species discussed by Tams (1924a) have appendiculate crochets, an
unusual feature outside the noctuid subfamily Bagisarinae (e.g. as discussed by
Holloway (1998)), though seen also in Marcillada Walker
(see p. 206). They also differ in having the prolegs on A3 absent rather than
reduced.
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