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Hypopyra Guenée
Type
species: vespertilio Fabricius,
India.
Synonyms:
Enmonodia
Walker
(type species hypopyroides Walker,
India = pudens Walker
contra
Nye
(1975) and Poole (1989); see taxonomic note under pudens);
Maxula
Walker
(type species idonea Walker,
India = unistrigata Guenée);
Pyramarista
Kirby
(type species rufescens Kirby,
Malawi).
Species
of Hypopyra
are
large and bear a slight resemblance to some Eupterote in
their oblique postmedial forewing fasciae and generally crenate or zig-zag
markings distal to these. However, the antennae are filiform and fasciculate
rather than bipectinate, and males can have massive and dense scale tufts on the
legs and along the hindwing dorsum (e.g. pudens Walker).
The patagia form a dark collar, but the moths are elsewhere a medium reddish
brown to fawn, or mauvish grey. The underside is more sharply, narrowly and
extensively fasciated and usually more brightly coloured in dull yellow through
to red, a colour that can extend around the sides and to the apex of the
abdomen. The forewing reniform is represented by two dark dots arranged
transversely, but between this and the postmedial there can be a patch or
several patches of black, the extent and shape of which varies within species as
much as between them.
The male
abdomen has the eighth segment unmodified, though the sternite may be shallowly
bilobed posteriorly and gently convex anteriorly. The uncus is robust, and there
is a narrow scaphium. The juxta is of the inverted ‘Y’ type. The valves are
simple, robust, tongue-like, but may have an interior lobe on the sacculus and a
small digitate process centrally. The aedeagus is long and slender, the vesica
small but moderately convolute.
In the
female of the type species, the ostium is associated with the anterior of the
eighth segment but situated under the posterior margin of the seventh sternite;
this last is only slightly reduced relative to the tergite. The ductus is broad,
flocculent over its basal part, though with a marked constriction subbasally.
From the broad part distal to this constriction, the ductus tapers gently over
some length to become very narrow, and is fluted. The corpus bursae is ovate to
pyriform, and finely but densely scobinate throughout.
The
genus is moderately diverse throughout the African and Oriental tropics, and
extends north into the eastern Palaearctic. Bornean species fall into two
groups, with pudens Walker
falling into the typical group and the rest into a group discussed under pallidigera
sp.
n. that
is related to unistrigata
Guenée
and therefore referable to Maxula Walker. This second group contains the
most easterly representative of the genus, an undescribed species from Sulawesi
and Ambon that has upperside facies as in H. villicosta Prout
(see below), but without the dense scale tufts that characterise the underside
of males in the pudens group.
The
larva of the type species was described by Gardner (1947) and illustrated by
Sugi (1987). The prolegs of A3 are reduced moderately and those of A4 slightly.
The ground colour is pale grey, with irregular and broken fine darker lineation
longitudinally. There is coarser variegation of this grey with a darker greenish
brown laterally on the head, irregularly in a broad band along the dorsum, and
broadly laterally on A1, A2, between A5 and A6, and between A7 and A8. The edge
of the dorsal band contains white dots with a black streak exterior to them that
is most conspicuous on the segments with prolegs.
The pupa
has a powdery bloom (Gardner, 1947). This is also seen in Spirama (Bell, MS).
The
host-plant is Albizia (Leguminosae) to which Miyata (1983) added Acacia
and
Wisteria;
the record in Zhang (1994) of Camellia (Theaceae) needs confirmation.
Larvae
in the related genus Spirama (see tribal account) are more uniform with the
longitudinal striation predominant. They also feed on Leguminosae (Robinson et
al.,
2001): Acacia,
Albizia,
Cassia
(records
in Zhang (1994) from fruiting trees probably refer to adult feeding).
The
adult has been recorded as fruit-piercer in Thailand, as has that of H.
unistrigata (Bänziger,
1982; Kuroko & Lewvanich, 1993).
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