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Artigisa Walker
Type
species: nigrosignata Walker,
Borneo.
The type
species is based on a specimen from Borneo indicated to be male in the original
description and confirmed here, though Edwards in Nielsen et al. (1996: 371) stated that the male is unknown. The
facies is as described in the species account.
The male
abdomen has an eighth segment that appears typical of the group, despite being
damaged. The genitalia have a slender uncus and a trifid valve apex, the slender
costal process of which is apically forked. The aedeagus vesica has several
lobes, with a series of short, but robust spines along one of these. The complex
valve apex and the structure of the uncus suggest relationships with Sandava Walker (see below) and Panilla.
The
female genitalia has the eighth sternite vestigial, with the ostium situated
where the sides of the tergite and the posterior margin of the seventh segment
come together. The ductus is short, single, and the appendix bursae at the
junction of this and the base of the neck of the bursa is curled and tapering,
typical of this group of genera. The bursa is elongate, pyriform, the neck
sclerotised up to the distal bulb where the sclerotisation terminates obliquely
at a zone of fine spicules which also occur progressively less densely in the
bulb.
Apart
from the type species discussed below, the genus currently includes five
Australian species (Poole, 1989; Nielsen et al. 1996).
Edwards in Nielsen et al. (1996) suggested that these might be better placed in
Sandava
Walker
(type species melaleucata Walker
= scitisignata
Walker, Australia).
McFarland (1979) noted the type species of Sandava as
a fungus-feeder. However, not all the Australian Artigisa
are
referable to Sandava,
as A.
impropria Walker
has lateral processes to the tegumen as in Panilla Moore
(see below and also the comment on the Fijian Diomea fenella Robinson
on p. 380); these are absent from Sandava. Dissection has, however, confirmed
another suggestion by Edwards (Nielsen et al.,
1996) that the monobasic genus Pectinidia Holloway (Norfolk I.) is congeneric with Sandava,
as the male genitalia are very similar. This is therefore formally recognised in
synonymy, syn.
n.
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