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Bocula Guenée
Type
species: caradrinoides Guenée, Java.
Synonyms:
Aramuna
Moore
(type species marginata Moore, 1884 (nec Moore, 1882), Sri Lanka = xanthostola
Hampson);
Borsippa
Walker
(type species quadrilineata Walker, Borneo); Eudragana
Butler
(type species limbata Butler, Christmas I.); Lacibisa
Walker
(type species bifaria Walker, Borneo); Sillophora Warren
(type species bimaculata Warren = bimaculata Snellen,
Sulawesi) praeocc.; Trichoptya Warren
(type species sejuncta Walker).
Species
of Bocula
have
highly distinctive facies and characteristics of the male abdomen, yet a number
of species has been attached to the genus erroneously and others have been
described in totally unrelated genera.
B.
poaphiloides Walker
was redescribed by Kobes (1984, Heterocera Sumatrana 2: 30) as Mecodina
sumatrana Kobes; Mecodina proves to be a better generic placement for this
species (see p. 321). Kobes also described Allocosmia sugii Kobes
from Sumatra in the same paper. The species megastigmata
Hampson
(Indian Subregion), transferred to Bocula by Poole (1989), is closely related and
should also be placed in Allocosmia (annotations in BMNH by W. Speidel and
the author) under its replacement name Imosca
Sugi
& Sasaki (2001) comb. n. Poole
(1989) also transferred the taxon padanga Swinhoe to Bocula,
but this proved to be a careine nolid that is now placed in Didigua
Walker
(Kobes, 1997; Holloway, 2003).
The male
antennae are fasciculate, sometimes strongly so. The male hindwings can be
variously modified with androconial scales and tufts, and the hindtibia can also
bear a massive tuft of scales or be virtually unmodified. The forewing facies
typifies the genus, consisting of fine, oblique, sometimes curved or obscure
dark antemedial, medial and postmedial fasciae that usually run more or less
parallel to each other. The submarginal may be regularly curved, irregularly so
or subcostally notched, and frequently defines a wholly or partially blackened
marginal area. The reniform is represented by a black dot of various sizes but
this can be obscure; it occurs between the medial and the postmedial, usually
closer to the former.
In the
male abdomen, the eighth sternite is elongate and massively bilobed both
anteriorly and posteriorly, the posterior lobes being invested with hairs and
sometimes subsidiary processes. The tergite is either of similar length and
paddle-like, the anterior handle part of the paddle possibly representing the
elongation and fusion of the two apodemes seen in the second group, as it has an
elongate central lacuna. In the second group (to which the name Borsippa
Walker
might be assigned at subgeneric level) the tergite is shorter, triangular with a
distal angle, anteriorly with a pair of broad, widely spaced apodemes that
represent the other angles of the triangle. There are extensive setal areas
lateral to this triangle. The genitalia have a rather weak but elongate,
digitate uncus that (typical group) may have a fringe of setae around its apex.
The valves are typically paddle-like with various small basal and saccular
processes and coremata, or (Borsippa) narrower, lacking a corema and with more extensive
basally directed hairs at the apex and a lobe with setae at two thirds on the
ventral margin. The juxta in both groups is a robust inverted ‘V’, the
components of which do not entirely fuse when they meet centrally.
In the
female genitalia, the ostium is broad and situated well within the eighth
segment. It tapers into a short to moderate ductus. The corpus bursae is
elongate and may be generally scobinate or have a ridge-like signum. The seventh
sternite is somewhat reduced and posteriorly rounded. In subgenus Borsippa
the
ostium is slightly more anterior, between the seventh and eighth segments, and
is not as broad. The seventh sternite is relatively more reduced and has a
distinctly bilobed posterior margin. The ductus is also very short (though the
neck of the bursa may be long and as narrow), and the bursa is variable in
shape, pyriform (e.g. in divergens
Prout)
or with a long neck.
The Borsippa
group
differs from the typical group in facies, usually having extensive black in the
forewing marginal area; these species are treated from xanthostola
Hampson
onwards.
The
genus is predominantly Oriental, but extends east to New Guinea the Solomons and
Australia and has several species in Africa.
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