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Dinumma Walker
Type
species: placens Walker.
Synonyms: Ortheaga
Walker
(type species combusta Walker,
Java); Paralopha
Bethune-Baker
(type species rubiginea Bethune-Baker,
New Guinea) syn.
n.
Inclusion
of Dinumma
in
the Scoliopterygini is tentative, based on the occurrence of a distally
displaced scaphium and of coremata extending to the apex of relatively simple
valves in the male genitalia. The male eighth abdominal segment is possibly a
modification of the framed corematous types. However, this is the only genus in
the tribe where the pupa has been noted to have a bloom (see p. 23), and also
the only genus that Fibiger (2003) listed with his Catocalinae rather than his
Calpinae. The ovipositor lobes also have features seen in Catocalini and
Catephiini.
The
forewing facies is atypical, consisting usually of a slightly darker medial zone
bounded sharply by irregularly and shallowly zig-zag antemedial and postmedial
fasciae. Within this band there may be a dark, transverse discal dash. The
marginal zone has diffuse and irregular paler fasciae, and there may be one or
two dark spots immediately submarginally that have pale bluish highlights. The
male antennae are ciliate. The labial palps have the third segment about half
the length of the second.
In the
male abdomen, the eighth segment is modified. The tergite is very much narrower
than the sternite and has splayed apodemes. It may have a circular lacuna at
two-thirds. The sternite is usually entire, with the distal margin bilobed and,
more rarely, with a slight lacuna near the anterior margin. The genitalia have a
strong scaphium that is displaced up the uncus. The valves are distally modified
into a corema and have a transverse process from the base of the costa to the
sacculus. The juxta is of the inverted ‘V’ type. The vinculum is not
excavate distally. The aedeagus vesica is diverse in form, usually with several
diverticula that may bear clusters of spines on a more dispersed array of simple
ones.
The
female genitalia are atypical of the tribe. The ovipositor lobes are acute, with
a slightly more sclerotised band running through the centre from the base of the
apophysis. A similar but more pronounced, narrower band occurs in the Catocalini
(p. 38) and the Catephiini (p. 83). The ostium is set within a complex sterigma
between the seventh and eighth segments that appears to extend forward from the
latter. The seventh sternite is distinctly reduced relative to the tergite and
somewhat trapezoidal. The ductus is short, moderate to broad, sclerotised, and
the bursa is generally pyriform with some sclerotisation and fluting on its more
basal part. It may be slightly scobinate more distally.
The
genus is found throughout the Indo-Australian tropics to as far east as the
Bismarcks, and extends north to Siberia (Poole, 1989).
The
biology of the type species and one other is described below; the larva of D.
deponens Walker
in Japan illustrated by Mutuura et al. (1965) resembles that illustrated for oxygrapha
Snellen
by Chey (1996). Other species in the genus (Sugi, 1987; Robinson et
al.,
2001) have been recorded from Albizia, so the genus as a whole shows some preference for
Leguminosae.
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