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Ecliptopera
Warren
Type species: triangulifera Moore, India.
Synonyms: Diactinia Warren (type species silaceata Denis
& Schiffermüller, Europe); Urolopha Swinhoe (type species furva Swinhoe,
India).
This genus consists mostly of species with a rather striking
triangulated or otherwise compartmented forewing pattern, though section Urolopha
has a more typically larentiine pattern with transverse fasciae. There is
usually a flat, triangular marginal zone of dark brown. The hindwings are mostly
plain, though often with a faint discal spot, and darker markings towards the
margin and tornus. The male antennae are filiform.
The male genitalia are simple, the uncus tapering, acute, the valves
tonguelike, with a strong setose lobe at the base of the costa (general to the
Cidariinae of Pierce (1914) who interpreted them as lobes of the anellus). The
aedeagus vesica contains a mass of small, needle-like cornuti. The abdomen has
coremata in some species between the eighth segment and the genitalia: these are
large in the second and third Bornean species listed, and these species also
have a smaller pair between segments 7 and 8.
In the female genitalia the ductus is short, narrow, the bursa large,
pyriform, with a narrow longitudinal band of sclerotisation bearing small,
laterally directed spines.
Larvae of a number of Japanese species are illustrated in Sugi (1987).
They are slender, smooth, tapering slightly from tail to head, various shades
from green to mottled brown or lineated red. One species is specialist on
Vitaceae, others feeding on Balsaminaceae and Onagraceae. European species are
also noted as feeding on Onagraceae (Allan, 1949).
The genus contains several Holarctic species but has its greatest
diversity in eastern Asia, particularly in warm temperate and subtropical
latitudes. It does not extend east of Sulawesi, and its tropical representatives
are usually montane.
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