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Avatha Walker
Type
species: includens Walker (= discolor Fabricius), India.
Synonyms: Pseudathyrma
Butler
(type species complens Walker, Sumatra); Pterochaeta Holland (type
species dohertyi Holland, Moluccas = stigmata Moore).
This
genus includes Indo-Australian species of the old but inappropriate concept of Athyrma Hübner (type
species adjutrix Cramer, Surinam),
a genus essentially restricted to S. America
and not related to the species discussed here.
Generic
concepts were reviewed by Roepke (1941) who retained usage of Athyrma for most species
and applied Pseudathyrma to species with androconia on the male
hindwing, though Athyrma javanica Roepke (Java) shares bipectinate
antennae and androconia with this group and probably belongs to the heterographa Hampson complex
(see below). Roepke also described the genus Athyrmella containing a
single species from Java, priangani Roepke, that has bipectinate antennae in
the male and may prove to be a further section of Avatha.
Poole (1989) placed Pseudathyrma in synonymy with
Avatha
but
still retained many Indo-Australian species within Athyrma. He listed
under Avatha a Bornean species, A. modesta Roepke,
originally described in Hypaetra Guenée from a single female. This proves
to be a synonym of Dordura aliena Walker, syn. n., which is treated
on p. 151.
This
concept of Avatha is followed here, but with assignation of many more
of the Indo-Australian taxa to it. Kobes (1985) separated Avatha from Pseudathyrma on grounds of
the pronounced ball-and-claw apex to the uncus in the latter, but the combined
concept adopted here can be defined on the presence of a prominent process at
the apex of the sacculus as well as general facies characters as discussed
below. The genus requires further revision and formal assignation of component
species, but is essentially Indo-Australian in distribution, though a small
number of African taxa listed by Poole (1989)
needs assessment.
The
species are generally smaller than in Serrodes, with a more
complex array of black markings on the forewing, subbasal rather than basal,
and, when they occur more distally, hieroglyph-like in the region of the darker
triangle associated with the reniform in Serrodes. The postmedial
is generally obscure, irregular. On the hindwing underside there is usually a
paler discal spot, and the darker postmedial is often unevenly emphasised,
generally as two or three broader, more prominent spots. The male antennae
range from ciliate to bipectinate, and the legs usually have scale-tufts.
The
male eighth segment is only slightly modified. The genitalia have a
ball-and-claw apex to the uncus in most species. The juxta is of the inverted
‘V’ or ‘Y’ type. The valves are slightly spatulate, usually with a prominent
spine at the apex of the sacculus. One species group has a more distal, slender
spine centrally nearer the valve apex. There may be an angle on the valve costa. The aedeagus vesica is slightly less complex than in Serrodes, the
diverticula more slender, with spining more localised but more prominent, with
larger more dispersed spines, when it occurs.
In the
female the ostium, often conical, is associated with the anterior of the eighth
segment, though the seventh sternite is vestigial or not clearly defined
between the expanded margins of the tergite. The structure distal to the ostium
is of two forms. In some species (e.g. pulcherrima Butler group,
uloptera Prout) the
narrow ductus consists of a basal sclerotised section with some lateral
scrolling, and a distal section, usually longer, that is unsclerotised but may
contain scobination; the ductus seminalis arises near the base of the distal
section. The corpus bursae is ovate to pyriform in this first group and has a
scobinate signum. The distal section of the ductus in this first group may be
more strictly a narrow neck to the bursa because, in the second group of
species (e.g. complens, discolor, stigmata, tepescens Walker and
relatives), the sclerotised section extends to the base of a more elongate
bursa, and the ductus seminalis arises basally within this amid more general
scobination.
As for Serrodes, larval host
plant records are predominantly from the Sapindaceae (Robinson et al., 2001; see also
below).
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