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Rhynchobapta Hampson
Type species: cervinaria Moore (India).
Synonyms: Phanauta Warren (type species eburnivena Warren).
This genus contains, in addition to the two generic type species
mentioned above, only the S. Indian R. irrorata Hampson, close in male
genitalic features to R. eburnivena. The forewings are slightly falcate
at the apex, and the hindwing is weakly angled at CuA2. Both wings are finely
striated with darker brown on a paler grey brown or bone-coloured ground, with
strong, dark postmedials on both wings that are edged by a narrow zone of
unstriated ground colour distad. The forewing has a similar, but weaker
antemedial. Both wings have dark discal dots. The male antennae are bipectinate
in the type species but filiform, densely invested with very short cilia, in the
other two species.
The male genitalia have the valves weakly corematous, tapering from a
rather broad base to a truncate apex; setation is typical, with peg-like setae
present. The slender, rather rectangular uncus is overlapped dorsally by a
rounded projection of the tegumen. The dorsal part of the anellus is extended
dorsally in a rectangular plate, apically bifid in the Bornean species. The
aedeagus is slender, the vesica narrow with a clump of slender spines borne at
the end of a small diverticulum. In the female genitalia (cervinaria) the
ductus is short, sclerotised over the basal third. The bursa is pyriform,
lightly sclerotised and fluted almost throughout, with a large ‘mushroom’
signum, the disc of which is invested with a scattering of small, blunt spines.
The larva of the type species is recorded as feeding on Ilex (Aquifoliaceae)
and Symplocos (Symplocaceae) in Japan, and two species of the related
genus Plesiomorpha Warren are also recorded from Ilex (Sato &
Nakajima, 1975). A Plesiomorpha species has been reared from Ilex
in Hong Kong (M.J. Bascombe pers. comm.), and has a swollen thoracic
zone as in Platycerota vitticostata Walker (See Eurychoria
Prout).
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