|
Progonia
Hampson
Type species:
reniferalis
Hampson (= oileusalis Walker), Sri Lanka.
Synonym: Fautaua Collenette (type species diagonalis Collenette, Tahiti), syn. n.
The species are delicate with moderately upcurved labial palps and ciliate antennae in both sexes. The male forelegs are uniquely specialized (Owada, 1987) with the femur covered laterally with long, hair-like scales. The tarsus has three segments and extends to more than twice the length of the tibial sheath. The second and third tarsal segments are short, but the first accounts for most of the length of the tarsus and bears a tuft of long hairs in a dorsal groove. The claw is well-developed.
The hindwing has M3 and CuA1 on a long stalk, as distinct from connate or short-stalked in Polypogon. The facies is uniform through the genus, the forewing with darker margins (within which a punctate pale submarginal may be evident) and a diffusely darker medial zone. The antemedial and postmedial fasciae are finely darker, irregular to punctate. The reniform is oblique, sometimes conspicuously darkened. The hindwings are paler than the forewings, though with a dark zone on the margin that emphasises the pale submarginal in the region of its obtuse angle.
In the male abdomen, the eighth segment is unmodified, distinguishing the genus from others where the tarsus is reduced. The male genitalia have valves with slight protrusions at the distal end of the sacculus and distinct subapical or apical projections from the costa. In many species there is broad sclerotisation between the valves in the transtillar region. The aedeagus vesica has an extensive field of very coarse scobination, and sometimes there is a short basal comb of more robust spines or larger cornuti.
The female genitalia are distinguished by the presence of signa consisting of two bundles of robust spines radiating from a common base set in a depression of the interior surface of the bursa opposite each other in the centre, at the base of the distal bulb. The portion basal to this is more strongly sclerotised or scobinate.
The genus ranges widely through the Old World tropics from Indian Ocean islands to Polynesia; P. umbrifera Lucas is known from Australia, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, Fletcher (1957) described P. spodopa from the Solomons and it has since been recorded from Seram (slide 19951). There is a trio of species endemic to Tahiti (Orhant, 2002, 2003). These were described in the genus Fautaua, but Holloway (1983) suggested the genus was closely allied to, if not synonymous with, Progonia. The genus shares all the diagnostic features of Progonia, and therefore this synonymy is formalised here.
The larvae feed on dead leaves (Owada, 1987). Robinson et al. (2001) recorded the families Rubiaceae and Rutaceae.
<<Back
>>Forward <<Return
to Content Page
|
