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Hypochrosis Guenée
Type species: sternaria Guenëe.
Synonyms: Marcala Walker (type species ignivorata Walker =
hyadaria Guenée); Patruissa Walker (type species pyrrhophaeata
Walker).
This genus is here defined on two features of the male genitalia: an
expanded, hammer-headed uncus; a distal lobe or digitate process to the valve
costa. Oriental taxa formerly assigned to Hypochrosis (e.g. by Holloway,
1976) that lack these features can mostly be assigned to the genus Capasa Walker
Gen. rev. (incensata Walker and other green-banded New
Guinea species), and to the next two genera, Omiza Walker and Celenna Walker.
Achrosis Guenée is transferred as a senior synonym to Sabaria Walker
for reasons given in the definition of that genus below. The genus Phoenix Butler
(type species iris Butler, N.E. Himalaya) should probably also be treated
as distinct. The male antennae in all these genera are strongly bipectinate,
those of the female weakly so.
The type species and that of Patruissa Walker have the process of
the costa strongly digitate on an elongate valve. The furca is lost. The facies
is distinctive, the forewing postmedial and antemedial enclosing an irregular,
darker, medial zone that is usually broken up into patches: a large costal one
and a small, often circular, subdorsal one. This core group of the genus is the
most apomorphic and also includes H. binexata Walker, H. waterstradti Holloway,
H. albodecorata Swinhoe and H. subrufa Bastelberger.
The remaining Bornean species can probably be assigned to the subgenus Marcala
Walker, having a Heterolocha-like pattern but the genitalia features
definitive of Hypochrosis (H. hyadaria Guenée and a few other Oriental
species; H. cryptopyrrhata Walker is somewhat divergent). The furca is
present.
The female genitalia in the core group and in hyadaria have a
coronate signum on a broad, irregularly circular base.
Despite the abundance of many of the species, their biology is mostly
unknown. The larva of H. cryptopyrrhata Walker is described below.
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