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Subgenus
Pseudaletia Franclemont
Type species: unipuncta Haworth (Europe, N. America).
This
a cosmopolitan complex of species with relatively unstriated dull pinkish or
reddish forewings. Trifine hair pencils are present in the male. The valves are
generally as in Aletia but with two distinctive features: a long,
hook-shaped process extending over the sacculus from the ventral sclerotised
foundation of the harpe; a sacculus with a rounded distal portion, separated
from the basal portion by a strong ventral indentation. The aedeagus vesica is
long with a short lateral arm subbasally and is ornamented over its length by a
narrow band of spines; in the female the appendix bursae is also correspondingly
long, mostly sclerotised in corrugations along with the distal half of the
ductus, and somewhat looped round the small, rounded and unornamented bursa.
Most
Indo-Australian species fall within a subgroup of the group, sharing features
such as a narrower distal portion to the sacculus and narrower, more a symmetric
corona. This group consists of M. separata Walker (see below), M. idisana
Franclemont (montane Luzon), M. convecta Walker (Australian,
with a distinct subspecies on Norfolk I.) and an undescribed species from the
mountains of Seram and New Guinea (slides 13903, 13904). The group is also
diverse in the New World and Hawai'i (Franclemont, 1951) and was briefly
reviewed by Holloway (1983). The subgenus includes serious, often migrant,
armyworm pests of subtropical regions, including the type species, and separata
and convecta of the Indo-Australian group. There are two species in
Borneo, separata and albicosta Moore.
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