SUBFAMILY ARCTIINAE
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Baroa Moore

Type species: punctivaga Walker (Java).

This is a small genus with species ranging from India to the Philippines and Sulawesi. All species are grey or fawn with rather narrow forewings that are nevertheless relatively deep between Rs and the costa. There is an areole in the forewing venation. All species have some yellow colour, usually on the labial palps, often on the thorax and sometimes at the apex of the abdomen. The antennae are filiform in both sexes, ciliate, more densely so in the male.

In the male genitalia the uncus is bifid, the valves rather globular, membranous, sometimes with coremata, the sacculus bearing a strongly sclerotised distal spur. The membrane between the eighth segment and the genitalia is longitudinally finely corrugate at least over the anterior portion. The eighth sternite extends anteriorly in a saccus-like lobe or triangular apodeme; the tergite is also modified, sometimes with a pair of anterior apodemes.

The female has the base of the ductus strongly sclerotised, with a semicircular lip just posterior to the ostium. The bursa is characterised by two longitudinal, band-like signa, each consisting of a pair of sclerotised bands with even scobination directed away from the central, immaculate, less sclerotised zone. In the siamica/javanica group (see below) the ovipositor lobes are flexed downwards and the expanded dorsal intersegmental membrane has a pair of eversible sacs; the bursa is constricted centrally, dividing it into a basal portion with the signa and an unornamented, membranous distal portion.

The pair of doubled signal bands in the female are also seen in the Madagascan genus Axiopoeniella Strand. In the male genitalia of Axiopoeniella the uncus is also bifid, the valve is globular, rather membranous, with a strong saccular process, and the eighth segment has modifications that could be homologous to those of Baroa.

A. Watson (pers. comm.) has examined these genera and noted a lack of arctiid characters such as a tymbal organ and a swollen base to vein Sc in the hindwing. The labial palps are long, acute, as in some noctuids. The signum is atypical in the female genitalia as are the sacs anterior to the ovipositor lobes.

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