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Niphocona
Gen. n.
Type species:
alboapicalis
Bethune-Baker comb. n., New Guinea.
This description validates a manuscript name of Hampson, used in the curation in BMNH, containing only the type species. The name was used by Lödl (1999e) for the taxon in Sumatra (described as new here), indicating that it was invalid.
The male antennae are strongly bipectinate, each of the rami being densely plumose. Those of the female are sparsely ciliate. The labial palps are slender, upcurved, the third segment about half the length of the second.
The facies of the wings is distinctive, the ground colour a medium to dark rich brown. The forewing has a large white triangle subapically on the costa that grades into a fine, mauvish submarginal that has a sharp distal boundary that defines a narrow rufous zone at the margin within which are blackish dashes on the veins. There is a similar border on the hindwing. The forewing has pale, linear antemedial and postmedial fasciae set close together at the dorsum; the antemedial curves basad near the costa, and the postmedial is angled out and then back again to enclose a large triangle defined by a similar fine, pale line. Faint mauve fasciae track each of the transverse fasciae closely within the medial area. The hindwing is more uniform but with an irregularly zigzag, pale postmedial.
The male abdomen has both the seventh and eighth segments modified, the former on its distal margins, that of the sternite very broad and with complex, asymmetric ornamentation, and the latter much reduced, sclerotised and divided into lateral lobes and spurs as illustrated. The genitalia have the uncus strongly downcurved, tapering, acute. The valves are relatively small, distally triangular and basally corematous. The aedeagus is narrow, straight, and the vesica is small.
The female genitalia have the eighth segment and the margin of the seventh sternite modified into a complex sterigma. The ostium is heavily sclerotised, with a bilobed plate immediately ventral to it. The ductus bursae is very short, and the corpus bursae is elongate, narrow, but relatively small, fluted but not sclerotised, and with a slight constriction at two thirds.
Poole (1989) retained the type species in its original genus, Catada, but it lacks the definitive features for that genus, such as the modification of the uncus and the coremata on the valves, as well as being totally different in facies.
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