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Echanella
Bethune-Baker
Type species:
purpurea
Bethune-Baker, New Guinea = albibasalis Holland.
Species in this genus could be confused with those of Hydrillodes in general build and wing shape, but male secondary sexual characteristics of the forewing are different when they occur, such as a longitudinal, arcuate pucker from the discal area of the cell to the margin. The cell in such species is open, with, in the one Bornean species having this feature, a branching system (R1(((R2(R3, R4))R5)M1)) or variants of this. There is a slight swelling centrally on the costa in this Bornean species, with a wisp of hair scales extending obliquely in a distal direction towards the pleat. The cell is closed, but weak, in other species or females. Prout (1928) provided further details of venation within the genus when describing the two Bornean species. The male antennae are finely to strongly ciliate and have a slight node just basal to centrally. The foreleg has a long tibial sheath over the tarsus that is not present in Hydrillodes; the first two tarsal segments are swollen. The labial palps are strongly recurved, sometimes only just larger in the male, but sometimes strongly extended to beyond the rear of the thorax and highly modified. The two Bornean species show the extremes of these features.
The forewings are usually extensively dark blackish brown, variegated paler, often greenish in these areas. The strongest fasciation is usually in the submarginal which is irregular but has a more obvious, obliquely excavate component at the costal end. The hindwings are a more uniform dark grey.
In the male abdomen the terminal segments are unmodified except for widely separated but short apodemes on the tergite and a shallow notch or bilobing to the distal margin of the sternite. The genitalia have the uncus relatively large, the capsule broad, and the valves rather short and triangular with a series of short but acute processes along the costal and inner saccular margins. The anellar tube is wide, with dense patches of spines. The aedeagus vesica has several diverticula but lacks scobination, though there may be spining basally or an irregular cornutus or sclerite subbasally.
The female has the terminal segments somewhat elongate and narrow, the ovipositor lobes being slender and acute. The ductus and corpus bursae are also narrow, the former sclerotised and sometimes with the ostium within a complex sterigma, and the latter lacking scobination or a signum.
The genus has two species in Sundaland and Wallacea, the type species in New Guinea and the Moluccas, and hirsutipennis Robinson in Fiji.
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