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Simplicia
Guenée
Type species:
rectalis
Eversmann, Palaearctic.
Synonyms: Aginna Walker (type species circumscripta Walker); Culicula Walker (type species bimarginata Walker); Libisosa Walker (type species butesalis Walker); Nabartha Moore (type species schaldusalis Walker).
The many species in this genus share a facies type that has the wings relatively more uniform in colour than other genera, usually a medium buff-brown, but sometimes more grey or with stronger brown markings. The forewing has a fine, transverse pale submarginal that is straight or evenly curved, and there is a similar fascia on the hindwing that has the obtuse angle typical of the genera where the male has a foretibial sheath. These pale fasciae can be emphasised by a darkening of the ground colour immediately basal to them, sometimes conspicuously so. The forewing usually has the reniform slightly blackened, and flanked by a transverse or oblique antemedial and a curved to sinuous postmedial that are a similar colour; these fasciae can be linear or irregular, and sometimes punctate. Prout (1929) described extensive variation in the forewing venation, defining the genus on the more constant features of facies, and referring also to the male genitalia.
In the male foreleg, the coxa is relatively short and robust compared to other genera with a tibial sheath, and the sheath itself is usually shorter than the first segment of the five-segmented tarsus. The tuft of hairs associated with this can be large. The male antennae of many species have a nodal section, variable in position, the flagellomeres being variously shortened, broadened, sinuous and densely covered with scales, the central ones with stout spines internally.
The male abdomen has an eighth segment of the framed corematous type. The genitalia often have the uncus somewhat domed dorsally, and the valves tend to be tongue-like, with slight to moderate spurs at the apex of the sacculus and, usually just subapically, the costa. The aedeagus vesica is large, usually with extensive coarse scobination.
The female genitalia have the ductus bursae relatively long, usually with two longitudinal sclerotised bands. The ductus seminalis is variably, but sometimes strongly, coiled, arising from the centre of the rather fluted basal half of the bursa, the coarse spining occurring over the basal half to two-thirds of the distal bulb.
The genus is diverse throughout the Indo-Australian tropics and subtropics with one species, S. cornicalis Fabricius, extending to the Marquesas and Rapa I. The genus also extends weakly into the islands of the Indian Ocean and to Africa. There are two Neotropical species listed by Poole (1989).
The larvae feed on dead (and occasionally fresh) leaves. Robinson et al. (2001) noted records for several Bornean species from a range of plant families (Amaranthaceae, Dipterocarpaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Gramineae Guttiferae, Leguminosae, Musaceae, Palmae, Rubiaceae, Sterculiaceae, Theaceae), but without indication of the part of the plant utilised or its condition. Records for robustalis may refer to this species or to its homonym under cornicalis (see below).
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