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Undatavitta Gen.
n.
Type
species: aroa Bethune-Baker, comb. n.
This
genus includes a group of species previously assigned to Avitta
that
have forewings with a ripple-like alternation of numerous brown fasciae on a
deep, dull mauve ground. External features are otherwise similar to those of Avitta;
the male hind-tibia bears a basal pencil of greyish or straw-coloured scales.
The male
eighth abdominal segment is unmodified. The tergite is slightly longer than the
sternite and has very short, widely separated apodemes. The male genitalia have
several diagnostic features: an uncus like a bird’s head that broadens out
from a narrow neck and terminates in a spine; a juxta that is strongly produced
distally into a long rod or spine; a valve that is sclerotised marginally around
a large, central, oval, lacuna, and is distally rather membranous to corematous;
an aedeagus vesica that terminates in a large cornutus that may be accompanied
by one or two more slender ones. None of these features is seen in Avitta
or
other genera here segregated from it; the vinculum / tegumen proportion is
closest to that of Avitta.
The
female genitalia (aroa) have the terminal segments strongly sclerotised and modified,
the eighth segment being elongate, cylindrical, with short processes at each end
and the ostium at the anterior. There is a triangular sclerite ventrally between
the ovipositor lobes. The ostium and ductus are not sclerotised, narrow, the
latter long. The bursa has a globular, sclerotised basal part and an
unsclerotised, pyriform distal part that has a some what triangular scobinate
signum centrally.
The
genus consists of the three species referred to below.
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