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Cricula
Walker
Type
species: trifenestrata Helfer.
Cricula is another purely Oriental genus, apart from one species that
extends to the Moluccas. It was reviewed in part by Holloway (1981) and is
currently being studied by W.A. Nassig.
All species are relatively small, brown or orange-brown, the wings each
crossed by two fasciae. The distal fascia is irregular on the hindwing and
the more basal one on the forewing. So the thicker, straighter opposite
fasciae on each wing are more or less aligned when the insect is at rest.
The wing ocelli are
much modified: that on the hindwing is reduced to a small black dot in
some species, otherwise a simple transparent circle; the forewing has a
transverse row of transparent patches, usually two, sometimes with a
smaller one intervening in the female where they are larger, or sometimes
reduced to a dark dot or lost completely in the male (usually the anterior
one). In two species, quinquefenestrata Roepke from Sulawesi and
drepanoides Moore from the eastern Himalaya, the transparent patches are
more numerous, archipelagic. W.A. Nassig (pers. comm.) suggests
drepanoides is best separated in the genus Solus.
The male genitalia are distinguished by complex lobing of the juxta,
rather elongate valves, sometimes apically bilobed, and an aedeagus vesica
that often bears large, darkly sclerotised cornuti.
The larva of the type species is described below, but a more detailed
account of larvae in the genus will be found in Nassig (in press, b).
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