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Pinacia
Hübner
Type species:
molybdaenalis
Hübner, Java.
Synonyms: Mixtila Swinhoe (unnecessary replacement name); Osericana Walker (type species albistella Walker, Sumatra).
The adult moths are very striking in facies: variations on a theme of a uniform ashy grey with prominent black discal and orbicular marks, often white-centred, on the forewing. The abdomen may have distal areas of dull yellow. The male antennae are very long and bipectinate, particularly in albistella. The labial palps are long, directed forwards and curved gently upwards.
The abdomen has large phragma lobes as in the Mecistoptera and Hypena groups. The male eighth segment is small and weakly framed corematous. The anterior margin of the third sternite in the male has slight apodemes. The genitalia have a long uncus and long, strap-like, upcurved valves with a central pleat. There are numerous deciduous hair-setae along the margins. The sacculus has a slight pucker at the centre of its internal surface, but the valves are otherwise unornamented. There is a small, globular structure between the valve bases similar to that seen in Paracolax and Hadennia, but the valve shape is more as in Leptocola (see p. 226). The aedeagus vesica has a scattering of small spines.
In the female genitalia, the ovipositor lobes are rather short and square. The eighth segment forms a complete ring with setae around the posterior margin only. There is a slight colliculum at the ostium, then a scobinate and slightly sclerotised section of the ductus bursae that tapers into a constriction, then expands beyond that into a pyriform and immaculate corpus bursae. The corpus bursae extends to just beyond the junction of the seventh and sixth segments. In molybdaenalis the seventh segment is relatively shorter than in albistella, with its distal part distinctly shouldered and pleated.
Poole (1989) placed Pinacia in the Herminiinae, but it has more features in common with the Hypeninae in the broadest sense.
The genus contains the two species discussed below and P. albolineata Snellen from Sumatra. The two species from New Guinea listed by Poole (1989) are possibly conspecific and unrelated to Pinacia. Poole may have overlooked a label in the BMNH collection (‘Gen’) indicating the start of a distinct but undescribed genus.
The biology of the type species is discussed below.
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