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This
tribe is weakly defined on possession of rather geometric forewing patterning
combined with a plain hindwing or one with varying degrees of flash coloration,
usually a pale medial band on a dark ground. The male genitalia have the uncus
variably complex, often with a dorsal peak, spine or other process, and opposed
by a strong scaphium. The tegumen often bears lateral processes. The valves tend
to be rather tongue-like or rounded distally, without ornamentation, this being
restricted to a zone adjacent to the vinculum, where processes from the costa to
the sacculus arise from an arch of sclerotisation across the base. The most
dorsal of these processes has been suggested by Fibiger (2003) to be the
detached costa. Bilateral asymmetry is frequent in all these features. The juxta,
aedeagus and vesica are typical of the core catocalines. The females usually
have a distinct antevaginal plate from the seventh sternite that covers the
ostium, but this can be divided, highly complex and hard to interpret. The
ductus bursae varies in length but can be long, sclerotised, rather ribbon-like,
and folded in a Z-like manner within the abdomen (usually mounted unfolded in
slide preparations).
It may
be possible to subdivide the tribe further, though the first two sections show
most of the features listed above. The first three genera treated, Artena
Walker,
Thyas
Hübner
and Ophiusa
Ochsenheimer
share features of both adults and larvae as discussed under Artena,
and the pupa may have secondarily lost the bloom found widely in the rest of the
tribe.
The
second section consists mainly of the Achaea
/Parallelia
complex
discussed by Holloway & Miller (2003) and on pp 53 and 57. Of the features
shared by the group, coremata on the valves of the male genitalia are the most
conspicuous. The genera from Ophisma Guenée
to Chalciope
Hübner
belong to this section, and possibly also Oxyodes Guenée.
The
final section consists of the genera Trigonodes Guenée
and Mocis
Hübner
with much simpler male genitalia with processes on the valves reduced to one
somewhat distally situated saccular process and sometimes a central, subapical
one, not a detached costa. Chalciope Hübner has facies features and open habitat biology
suggesting a relationship to the third section, but the male genitalia have
coremata and valve processes as in the second section, and the structure of the
male eighth sternite also indicates this. Rectipalpula Joannis
is retained provisionally in the group through its association with Oxyodes.
Host
plant records for the three sections are also distinct, with the first favouring
Combretaceae and Myrtaceae, the second with genera specialist on Euphorbiaceae,
and the third with most records on Gramineae and Leguminosae.
Berio
(1959) split the first section between his phyla of Anua
and
Dermaleipa,
but the second corresponds to his phylum of Achaea
and
the third to his phylum of Mocis. Fibiger (2003) recognised the first two sections as
genus-groups and added two further genera from the European fauna to the first.
Family-group names are available for all three sections, with Ophiusini (=
Anuini, Lagopterini and Dermaleipini) falling within the first, Dysgoniini (=
Achaeini) for the second and Remigiini (= Mocisini) for the third.
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