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Hypospila Guenée
Type
species: bolinoides Guenée, Java, India.
Synonyms:
Moepa
Walker
1865: 981 (nec Walker 1865: 916; type species concisa Walker,
Moluccas = bolinoides)
praeocc.;
Orrea
Walker
(replacement name for Moepa).
The
species in this genus bear strong resemblance to those of Tochara
Moore
(see the diagnosis below). The forewings are rather elongate, apically produced,
and the antennae are also long; the abdomen extends well beyond the hindwings.
Fore- and hindwings have a pattern that continues across both: a fine, zig-zag
postmedial and, closely distal to it, a straight, and conspicuous submarginal,
defined as the boundary between a pale basal component grading darker basad and
a dark distal component that grades paler distad. The forewing reniform consists
of a pale lunule within a darker halo that continues weakly to the dorsum as a
diffuse medial band. The male hindwing has an elongate, scaleless zone on each
side of M1 that is lacking Tochara.
The male
eighth abdominal segment has the tergite with a central sclerotisation like the
letter Y, with a slightly two-tailed base directed distally towards a pair of
membranous, scobinate lobes. The sternite has a rather angular ring of
sclerotisation that supports a weak corema. This is probably a modification of
the widespread framed corematous structure.
The male
genitalia have a number of definitive features: the uncus apex has a hastate
dorsal component and a bilobed ventral component with a patch of setae on each
lobe; the valve is simple, elongate-ovate, but with a broadly lobed costal
process. The costa extends at its base to join its opposite number in a
transtilla; the juxta is small, weak, consisting of two sclerotised patches.
The
female genitalia have the narrow ostium within the eighth segment. The ductus is
narrow and moderate, the bursa flimsy, pyriform.
The
biology of the type species is described below. The host plant is in the
Leguminosae.
The
genus, as reviewed by Holloway (1979), consists of an allopatric array of
species related to bolinoides that includes pseudobolinoides Holloway
(Solomon Is.) and similis Tams (Fiji, Rotuma, Vanuatu, Samoa). In addition,
there are two further, more distinctive species in the Solomons. Nielsen et
al. (1996)
only recorded H. dochmotoma Turner from Australia, which may also be
the bolinoides group taxon in New Caledonia (Holloway, 1979), though
a male from Queensland (slide 8762) has male genitalia as in New Guinea bolinoides.
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