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Sympis Guenée
Type
species: rufibasis Guenée.
All
species have a similar facies of a brown forewing with a distinctly more rufous
section basal to a straight antemedial that may be narrowly defined by pale
mauve. The narrow reniform is immediately distal to this when evident, and there
is often a further rufous patch distal to the reniform. The hindwings are a dark
brown without any rufous tinge and have a diffuse bluish white fascia
represented centrally in the medial zone. The underside is dull brown and has
more extensive mauve suffusion, particularly on the hindwing, which has a few
zig-zag fasciae in the distal part. The male antennae are ciliate, with a
distinctive tuft of long scales at the rather nodular base of the scape; the
legs and labial palps are also somewhat tufted with mauve-grey scales, the
foretibia with a pencil of cream-coloured hairs. The labial palps of the female
are more elongate, with the second and third segments slender and straight.
In the
male abdomen, the eighth sternite is triangular, produced beyond the tergite
which is only slightly tapered; there are no lacunae, coremata or apodemes. The
uncus and scaphium are similar to that of the Scoliopterygini, though the apex
of the former is of the ball-and-claw type. The valves are highly corematous and
densely scaled distally and externally at the base, with a series of processes
from the costa to the sacculus more basally. There is no obvious saccus, but the
vinculum is ventrally deeper with an unusual deep central cleft dorsally and a
shallower one ventrally. The juxta is somewhat ovate, though with a pair of
longitudinal ridges or thickenings ventrally that could possibly be derived from
an inverted ‘V’. The aedeagus is slender, straight, the vesica globular,
with a group of up to eight small spines.
The
female genitalia have the ostium within the seventh segment, covered by
development of the reduced sternite into a pair of tongue-like antevaginal
plates. The ductus has a short sclerotised section at the base, then a more
expanded, corrugated and slightly scobinate chamber from a basal angle of which
the ductus seminalis arises. The small, ovate corpus bursae is distal to this
chamber, separated by a slight constriction.
Apart
from the type species, the genus includes S. parkeri Lucas
from Queensland and an undescribed species from New Guinea (females; slide
18709) with a more closely defined white band and more intensely whitened
fringes on the hindwing and a more irregular white line on the forewing.
The
biology of the type species is described below.
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