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Mecodina Guenée
Type
species: lanceola Guenée,
Bangladesh.
Synonyms: Araeognatha
Hampson
(type species: umbrosa Hampson,
Sri Lanka); Boethantha Walker
(type species bisignata Walker,
Timor I.); Seneratia Moore
(type species praecipua Walker,
Sri Lanka).
The
synonymy above follows Poole (1989) and Nielsen et al. (1996), but might also include Psimada
where,
apart from the unusual margins to the valves of the genitalia, several features
of the male abdomen are shared with the type species of Mecodina.
Certainly any future detailed revision of Mecodina should take in Psimada.
The
general colour is usually a violet-grey, often somewhat brownish, with darker
fasciation, usually irregular, crenulate, but sometimes more patterned as in M.
lanceola,
where the forewings are unusually narrow. Most species have a triangular,
trapezoidal or more irregular dark patch on the forewing costa adjacent and
basal to the submarginal. Unlike in the Parallelia complex of the Ophiusini, this is not
bounded on its basal side by the postmedial except in albodentata
Swinhoe
and close relatives. Some species have a corresponding but more irregular dark
mark associated with the submarginal at the hindwing dorsum. The male antennae
are ciliate, and can be very long, extending to or beyond the subapical costal
patch in the related type species of Boethantha and
Seneratia.
The male legs are not conspicuously scaled, though there may be small tibial
crests.
The male
abdomen has variations of the framed corematous theme in the eighth segment:
relatively elaborate in lanceola and
Boethantha;
the sclerites rather rectangular, bilobed distally in albodentata and
relatives; more typical in Araeognatha. Shared features of the male genitalia are: the
complex articulation of vinculum and tegumen; simple, unornamented, paddle-like
valves; a large and convolute aedeagus vesica, usually with scobination that may
become enlarged with fields of tooth-like cornuti as in Psimada.
In the
female genitalia, the seventh sternite is slightly reduced, but the ostium is
associated with the eighth segment. The ductus may be slightly funnel-like at
the ostium but is generally narrow and unsclerotised. The bursa is ovate,
pyriform or elongate and has the ductus seminalis arising from a small, slightly
coiled appendix near its base. It may have general scobination, but several
species have a long scobinate band in the more distal part, sometimes ringing it
obliquely (e.g. Araeognatha).
The
genus is found throughout the Old World tropics and extends into the Oriental
subtropicals.
The
larvae of several species have been reared, and tend to have fully developed
prolegs as described for two species below. These feed on Apocynaceae, Moraceae
and Meliaceae. Miyata (1983) and Robinson et al.
(2001) record other species as feeding on Durio (Bombacaceae), Ficus
(Moraceae),
Nephelium
(Sapindaceae),
Theobroma
(Sterculiaceae),
and Ichnocarpus and Trachelospermum (Apocynaceae).
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