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Thyas Hübner
Type
species: honesta Hübner.
Synonym:
Lagoptera
Guenée
(type species: elegans Hoeven = juno Dalman; see Nye, 1975).
This
genus shares a larval characteristic, a dorsal ellipse on A5, with Artena,
as discussed on p. 41, but has a different and characteristic forewing facies.
The submarginal is set much further from the margin, and can be much more
obscure than the other fasciae. A diagnostic feature is an enlarged reniform
that is variable in expression, with pale and blackened forms both occurring.
The hindwings and abdomen are usually red or yellow with black or brown bands or
patches, and two species, T. juno and T. javanica Gaede,
have a medial blue band as in Artena.
The male
abdomen has the eighth segment unmodified except for short, broad, well
separated apodemes on the tergite and a shallowly concave posterior margin to
the sternite. In the genitalia, the uncus is entire or posteriorly bifid, and is
associated with a scaphium. The structure of the tegumen and valves is also
diverse and offers no definitive features for the genus. The juxta is of the
inverted ‘Y’ type. The aedeagus vesica is also diverse in form, e.g.: small,
with a few groups of spines in juno; long, with diverticula and
generally scobinate in honesta.
The
female genitalia are also diverse in structure, but the ostium is associated
with and covered by an antevaginal plate from the seventh sternite, small and
only slightly bilobed in javanica Gaede, more extensive and strongly
bilobed in juno, and completely divided in honesta.
The ductus is variable in length but always sclerotised. The corpus bursae
varies in size but is always corrugated and scobinate.
The
genus (see Poole (1989), who placed Lagoptera
as
a synonym of Thyas)
contains a number of species, mostly widespread, and extends throughout the
Indo-Australian tropics.
The
larvae have a wider host range than either Artena or
most Ophiusa,
the pupae lack a powdery bloom, and the adults are often noted as fruit-piercing
pests.
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