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Hepatica Staudinger
Type
species: anceps Staudinger, S.E. Siberia.
Synonyms:
Ananepa
Hampson
(type species doda Swinhoe) syn. n.; Anepa Swinhoe
(type species oxydata Hampson,
India) praeocc.;
Folka
Swinhoe
(replacement name for Anepa).
This is
an eastern Palaearctic and Oriental genus currently included in the Ophiderinae
(Nye, 1975; Poole, 1989) but possibly better placed with herminiines allied to Mecistoptera
Hampson,
as a number of features are shared with that genus, including a prespiracular
position of the counter-tympanal hood (M. Lödl, pers.
comm.;
see also Lödl (1997)), though this is not always apparent; in the type species
the spiracle is situated posterior to the edge of the counter-tympanal cavity,
but no hood is evident. One of the species currently included in Hepatica
by
Poole (1989), duplicilinea Hampson,
was originally described in Mecistoptera.
The male
antennae are ciliate or fasciculate. The lower part of the clypeofrons is
unscaled, though dorsal to this area and below the line of the antennae is a
forwardly directed tuft of scales. The labial palps are also directed forward,
long, slender, the third segment shorter than the second. The thorax and
anterior segments of the abdomen may also bear central crests of scales.
The
forewings are less triangular than in Mecistoptera,
but the distal margin has a similar central angle. The ground colour is fawn,
with irregular fasciation in the type species, oxydata Hampson
(Khasis) and contigua Wileman (Taiwan), but this is straight, transverse in
most other species, particularly the postmedial, which is doubled in some
species, such as all those from Borneo described below.
The
reniform is a dark dot and the orbicular is a pale one, the latter also a
feature of Mecistoptera. The hindwing postmedial is curved roughly parallel
to the margin, with a discal lunule inside it, in the type species, oxydata
and
contigua,
but the lunule is absent and the postmedial straight in other species.
The male
abdomen has the eighth segment of the framed corematous type, resembling that of
Mecistoptera, (illustrated by Lödl (1997)). In the genitalia,
the valve is somewhat paddle-like, expanding distally to a rounded apex and
characterised by a process arising from a subcostal pleat or ridge, and
sometimes another one (e.g. in contigua and orbicularis sp.
n.)
basally from the sacculus; both these features are seen in Mecistoptera.
The juxta is variable in structure, usually longer than broad, and may have
spined processes laterally (two Japanese species). The aedeagus has a moderate
to large vesica that is usually extensively scobinate.
The
female has the ostium wide, associated with the eighth segment. The ductus
bursae is short, not much longer than the width of the ostium. The corpus bursae
is large, ovate, with a slight bulge basally, usually on the right side, that
gives rise to the ductus seminalis (this basal section of the bursa is elongate
and narrow in doda Swinhoe). The ductus may be sclerotised
or scobinate. Rarely (contigua amongst the species examined), there is a scobinate
signum in the distal part of the bursa. The female Mecistoptera
illustrated
by Lödl (1997: figs 15-17) is
very similar but the bursa is generally scobinate, with a stronger signum
distally within it.
No
features were located to justify separation of Ananepa
from
Hepatica
except
the more elongate and pyriform corpus bursae, so it is placed in synonymy,
though see Yoshimoto (2002) for further discussion of the group.
A
Japanese species was noted as feeding on Quercus (Fagaceae)
by Sugi (1987).
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