|
Carbia Walker
Type species: calescens Walker.
Synonym: Leiocera Hampson (type species axis Hampson = pulchrilinea
Walker) syn. n.
This genus, Pomasia Guenée and Pardodes Warren (New
Guinea) contain a number of strikingly patterned, often orange, red or yellow
species that share an unusual feature: the apodemes at the base of the second
tergite are very long and slender in both sexes (Fig 347). This feature is also
seen in some Eupithecia Curtis.
Whilst Pomasia contains species of relatively uniform genitalic
characteristics, Carbia consists of three rather divergent groups, at
least with regard to the structure of the bursa in the female. All have facies
where the pale postmedial on the forewing is a strong zig-zag, but the
submarginal, at least over the anterior two-thirds, is more or less straight.
The fasciation is finer, more regular and linear than in Pomasia and the
hindwings are more or less plain rather than similarly patterned to the forewing
as in Pomasia and Pardodes: section Leiocera is an
exception to this. Pardodes has broad, diffuse orange-yellow bands,
interrupted in places on a paler yellow ground.
The male genitalia have the valves broad, with a broad field of setae
around the rounded ventral margin that are directed towards the base of the
costa. Labides and falces are well developed but not modified. The uncus is
short, acute, the subscaphium sclerotised over a considerable length and setose
in places. These features are seen also in Pardodes, and also in Poecilasthena
Warren and the genera following it in Eupitheciini.
The ovipositor lobes of the female are rather narrow, acute, darkly
sclerotised compared with those in Pomasia, but this feature is shared
with Pardodes. Typical Carbia females have the ductus and sterigma very broad, the bursae elongated into a tube, spined more heavily on
one side, leading to a small, ovate, immaculate bulb distally. Section Leiocera
has a somewhat X-shaped sclerotisation basally in the ductus, with the bursa
slight, narrow, with two longitudinal combs of small spines in the distal part.
The third section (C. moderata Walker, C. nexilinea Warren, C.
calefacta Prout and relatives) has the ductus and ostium narrow, simple: the
bursa is spherical, extensively spined usually with a ligulate appendix
laterally; C. nexilinea has a helical band of spining in the neck of the
bursa. The situation in Pardodes is much as in this last section but
there is a distal, immaculate bulb instead of the ligulate appendix, and a small
atrium to the spined spherical part of the bursa that contains a few more robust
spines as in some Pomasia.
Carbia is most diverse in Sundaland, all species being represented in Borneo.
<<Back
>>Forward <<Return
to Contents page
|
