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Hepsidera
Swinhoe Gen. rev.
Type species:
lignea
Swinhoe.
This genus was listed as a synonym of Alelimma Hampson by Poole (1989), but shows no really close morphological relationship. The three included species (see below) are larger and more robust. In the male, the antennae are long, fasciculate in the type species and bipectinate, tapering in the new species. The labial palps in the type species, but not the new one (see below), are recurved, reaching back to the centre of the thorax, and the foretibia is densely tufted with scales. In Alelimma the male antennae are much more strongly bipectinate, the labial palps are shorter, not recurved, and the foretibia is not densely scaled, lack a sheath. A tibial sheath is present, and there is an apical spur to the first tarsal segment, this extending just beyond the sheath and almost equal in length to T2-5. The spur is recurved and bears many setae, those lining the convexity of the curvature to the apex being more robust than those elsewhere. The facies of the forewing has the fasciation obscure, but the postmedial is angled around the discal mark. Streaking along the veins is contributory to obscuring the fasciation, and is particularly prominent in the type species. The hindwings are less strongly marked and, on the underside, there is a faint orbicular spot as well as the discal mark.
In the male abdomen, the eighth segment is unmodified, though the tergite has well separated apodemes, broad but shallow in the type species. The genitalia are typical of the subfamily, perhaps more particularly of Bertula and related genera, but with no particularly diagnostic features.
Females have only been located for H. deletaria Walker comb. n. (N.E. Himalaya), a species similar to lignea but larger (Fig 141). The ostium is set in a semicircular pocket under the straight posterior margin of the sternite. The ductus is half as long again as that sternite, narrow, with two longitudinal sclerotised strips. The corpus bursae is elongate, slightly larger than the ductus, irregularly corrugated, with sclerotisation basally giving way to scobination distally, approximately at the more or less central position of the slightly coiled appendix bursae. The scobination is more concentrated on one side of the distal portion where the corrugation appears to surround a weak central dome.
The genus consists of the three species discussed here.
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