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Dichromia
Guenée
Type species:
orosia
Cramer (= sagitta Fabricius), India.
Synonyms: (Lödl, 1994): Ametropalpis Mabille (type species nasuta Mabille, Madagascar); Camphypena Prout (type species thomensis Prout, Sao Thomé I., W. Africa).
Lödl (1993) indicated that Dichromia was distinct from Hypena rather than a synonym as listed by Poole (1989). Though many species have a distinctive, dark-bordered, yellow or white hindwing, Lödl identified the main diagnostic features in the male genitalia. The uncus is more evenly tapering, though with its strongest curvature often in the central part. The valves, vinculum and tegumen are elongate as in Harita Moore (see next genus) but the valves are relatively broader, and their costa runs more closely to the tegumen when splayed. They articulate with the vinculum more distally than in Harita, over a depth intermediate between that of Hypena and Harita. The sacculus is produced ventrally in a lobe that is usually granulated. There is also a more substantial saccus than in Harita. The eighth segment is similar to that of Hypena except the tergite is distinctly narrower than the sternite and has a slight ring of thickening extending back from the apodemes.
The larvae of the type species and D. trigonalis Guenée were described by Gardner (1946a) and by Bell (MS). The prolegs on A3 are absent, those on A4 normal or only slightly smaller. The body setae are on strong black chalazae, and the spiracles are also black. The body is a cryptic brown or green with some darker shading and paler lineation or variegation. The larvae feed on young leaves and pupate on the ground in a silken cocoon incorporating detritus.
Larval hosts recorded for these species are Marsdenia and Tylophora (Asclepiadaceae) for sagitta; Boehmeria (Urticaceae) for trigonalis; see also Robinson et al. (2001) under Dichromia and Hypena.
The genus has eleven species in Africa (Lödl, 1994), and it is probably as, or more diverse in the Indo-Australian tropics, but its full extent has yet to be ascertained.
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