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Pterogonia
Swinhoe
Type
species: episcopalis
Swinhoe, India.
Synonym: Craspedogonia
Hampson (type species
nubes
Hampson, Sri Lanka).
The forewings are deep, sexually dimorphic, the dorsum and distal margin tending
to form a rather irregular curve together in males, but to be much more angled
in females. The facies is rather uniform but striate, sometimes with finer dark
fasciae, and there can be silvered highlights or distinct silver patches.
The male genitalia lack an uncus, but the longitudinal suprascaphial band is
lined sparsely on each side by setae (this could conceivably represent fusion of
a vestigial uncus to the anal tube). The valves are robust, broadly based, and
may have a harpe. The vinculum and saccus are very short. The aedeagus apex is
spined, and the vesica, though narrow, has diverticula that bear cornuti in some
of the species.
The female genitalia (cardinalis
Holloway) have the ostium deeply cleft ventrally, the ductus broad, sclerotised,
leading into a long, sinuous neck to the bursa, fluted and tapering towards the
junction. The corpus bursae is elliptical and finely fluted, the ridges of the
fluting rugose.
The biology of the type species was described by Bell (MS). The larva has
segments T2 to A1 tumid in a single rounded tumidity but not really shining and
berry-like as in Carea
etc. Bell compared the larva more closely with
Blenina.
The prolegs are short; no reduction in number is mentioned. The body is velvety
smooth, with minute primary setae only. The colour is a rich, soft grass green,
with a thin sublateral white band on A7-9 and white associated with the prolegs
and anal claspers. There are small chocolate stripes and blotches anteriorly,
posteriorly and associated with the spiracles to form a broad lateral band. The
venter is whitish, suffused red from T1 to A2.
The pupa is claviform with both ends round, the anterior more broadly so. There
is no cremaster but the anterior of A10 is beaded dorsally with a row of 14-16
blunt, conical teeth. It is enclosed in a cocoon, built up as lateral walls
incorporating chewed bark, and also moss and lichen. These walls are united
centrally to give a semiovoid cocoon sloped outwards at each end, cryptically
concealed against the bark of the twig or branch on which it has been
constructed. If the cocoon is touched, the pupa shivers violently to produce a
rustling sound.
The larva sits on the upper side of a leaf on a bed of silk when feeding, but
will hide in a curled leaf or under another that it fixes over itself.
The host-plant was Eugenia (Myrtaceae).
All species are discussed in the sections following; the genus is absent from
Africa.
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