::The Moths of Borneo::

SUBFAMILY AEDIINAE

�Catephia� xylosis Prout (Plate 1, Fig 89)

�� Anophia xylosis Prout, 1925, Ann. Mag. nat. Hist. (9), 16: 400.

Diagnosis. The wings are various shades of ligneous brown, the forewings having a distinctly �woody� appearance: the costa is a blackish brown and the rest of the wing a much paler, warmer brown, divided by a slightly darker diffuse band running parallel to the costa from the base of the dorsum to the distal margin just posterior to the apex. The hindwings are a similar pale brown with a diffusely darker border.

Taxonomic note. Poole (1989) transferred the species (as xylois) to Catephia, reflecting the curation then current in BMNH. Prout, in her original description, considered placement in this complex tentative, but the most feasible at the time of writing. The male abdomen has an eighth segment of the framed corematous type, but the corematous zone extends undivided anteriorly across between the sides of the frame as a shallow pocket. The genitalia are suggestive of placement somewhere in the true Noctuidae, the valves being relatively simple with a slight corona of setae apically and a harpe directed dorsally from the interior of the sacculus, strong on the left valve but vestigial on the right one. The aedeagus vesica is simple, ovate, with a massive distal cornutus. The phragma lobes between the first and second abdominal tergites appear very shallow, though the abdomen dissected is damaged at that point.��

Geographical range. Peninsular Malaysia, Borneo, Philippines (Luzon).

Habitat preference. One specimen was recorded in the original description from Bidi in the lowlands of Sarawak. Three further specimens have been recorded in recent surveys: two from lowland forest in the Barito Ulu of Kalimantan; one in stunted hill forest at 900m on Bukit Monkobo in Sabah.

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