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Dyrzela
Walker
Type
species: plagiata Walker.
Synonym:
Maxilua Walker (type species frontalis Walker = incrassata Walker).
This
genus has its greatest diversity in the Oriental tropics. It consists of small
species with brown or leaden grey forewings that are traversed by three (antemedial,
medial, postmedial) fine dark fasciae; a definitive feature is a dark brown
patch based on the costa distal to the postmedial. The male antennae are ciliate
(castanea, incrassata), weakly bipectinate towards the base (plagiata) or
partially (basal two thirds) strongly bipectinate (bosca / increnulata group).
The male abdomen has
no basal hair pencils. The eighth segment is variably modified, with lateral
coremata between it and the seventh segment (tumidimacula only), the
tergite usually reduced to a slender rod-like sclerotisation with a distal
expansion or ring (in plagiata it resembles the ring-pull of a drink
can!), and the sternite with narrow lateral longitudinal sclerotisation (not
external rods) that may be connected at each end to a broader central band (incrassata)
or bridged interiorly by a transverse band (plagiata).
In the male
genitalia the valve is simple, straplike, with a basal corema that may be
somewhat rigid, sclerotised, triangular (bosca group). The sacculus is
unadorned but there is a tridentate or bidentate, ventrally directed process
from the costa at the base of which is a sinuous spur or clavus. The saccus is
unusually long and slender.
In the female
genitalia the ovipositor lobes are relatively large, squarish, the eighth
segment a deep, simple ring (narrower dorsally), and the bursa weak, unadorned,
on a short, sclerotised ductus.
The larva has the
first two pairs of prolegs reduced, walking as a semi- looper (Bell, MS). It is
stoutest centrally, almost twice the width of the head. There are indications of
specialisation on Grewia (Tiliaceae).
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