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SUBFAMILY
ARAEOPTERONINAE |
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Niaccaba Walker Type species: sumptualis Walker, see below. This is a monobasic genus with facies as described for the type species below. Its placement in association with the Araeopteroninae is contrary to the arrangement of Hampson (1910), who associated the genus with Eublemminae, and needs further investigation. No unambiguous pointers were identified in the abdominal features noted below. Features of the head and wing venation were illustrated by Hampson (1910). The labial palps are directed forwards, slightly upcurved, about twice the length of the head, with the third segment very short. The male antennae are ciliate. The radial sector veins are reduced, with R1 arising independently from the cell. The next two radial veins have a common stalk, with the posterior branch reaching the apex of the wing; the fourth is connate with the stalk of this pair. M3 and CuA1 are stalked on both fore- and hindwings. There are no obvious phragma lobes between the first and second abdominal tergites. The male abdomen has an eighth tergite as in the framed corematous condition, with apodemes converging on a central thickening, but the sternite is three times as wide, without a framed structure, except for a small central apodeme with narrow lateral ridges running from it on the anterior margin. The genitalia have a highly complex structure to the tegumen, juxta and vinculum as illustrated; this is possibly a further modification of the complex Araeopteroninae situation. The uncus is irregularly shaped, deeper over the basal half, with a slight ‘ball and claw’ to its apex. The valves are narrow with a slender saccular process interiorly. The female genitalia have the apodemes of the eighth segment reduced, but there are slight lobes laterally on the anterior margin. The ductus is unsclerotised (therefore not typically eublemmine) and extends for the length of the seventh segment. The corpus bursae is narrow, rather sausage‑like, but with a hooked appendix bursae at its basal end giving rise to the ductus seminalis. Distal to this are some complex sclerites with a slender spine extending distad from them amid some scobination. The distal half of the corpus bursae is unornamented. |
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