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Targalla
Walker Gen.
rev.
Type species: infida Walker.
Synonyms: Cryassa Walker; Euteliella Roepke
syn. n.
This genus has been revived from synonymy with Phlegetonia Guenee,
regarded here as a junior subjective synonym of Eutelia Hübner .
Targalla species are all distinguished by a marked flexing of the tegumen in the
male genitalia (seen in lateral view well in Fig. 113 for T. apicifascia Hampson).
The uncus is short, terminally hooked except in the Euteliella group
where the hook is absent. The saccus is long, usually relatively broad. The
eighth abdominal sternite of the male bears a pair of coremata, (Figs. 26, 27),
massive in T. suffundens Walker.
All species except T. apicifascia Hampson and its Fijian and
Samoan sister species T. barbara Robinson comb. n. have smooth, filiform
antennae in both sexes; the pectinations are present but reduced in the apicifascia
pair. No other euteliine genus represented in the Indo-Australian tropics
has filiform antennae in the male. The bursa copulatrix in the female of apicifascia
has a pair of scobinate signa, possibly a plesiomorphy within the genus;
also species have the apophyses of the 8th segment apparently absent or fused
with the ductus.
Typical Targalla, the Euteliella group, T. albiceps Hampson
and T. transversa Candeze have on the forewing a distinctive black
chevron, an intensification of the interior line of the postmedial, almost
bracketing the reniform. This is most extreme in albiceps. In the other
species the post-medial is curved at that point.
The Euteliella group is defined by the loss of the hook at the
tip of the uncus, rather simple square valves and a multilobed vesica to the
aedeagus, each lobe usually with a slender cornutus apically. The bursa
copulatrix of the female is evenly scobinate, a character also seen in transversa.
The type species of Euteliella is eriopoides Roepke, and the
group contains three further species, all occurring in Borneo.
Typical Targalla includes the three species of the delatrix Guenée
complex, augmented by a further Indian species that is named below for Dr. S.
Sugi who alerted the author to the occurrence of the complex, and the revival of
T. ludatrix Walker. The group also includes atripars Hampson and
two species not represented in Borneo, T. bifacies Walker comb. n. (Sri
Lanka) and T. repleta Walker comb. n. (S. India, Sri Lanka). All are
relatively large species with the reniform and exterior dark chevron forming a
characteristic dark area just distal to a pale, transverse, straight, oblique
medial band. The zone basal to the medial band is usually darker than the ground
colour of the wing distal to it. In the male genitalia the flexure of the
tegumen is extreme; the hook of the uncus is sharply flexed; the interior of the
generally oblong valves is complex and fused to the anellus; the aedeagus is
long, the vesica containing several cornuti and a spined band. In the female
genitalia the bursa copulatrix has several patches of coarse scobination
basally. Species of this group have been recorded as feeding on various
Myrtaceae as larvae.
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