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Ilema
Moore
Type species: costalis Walker, Java.
Synonyms: Cadrusia Moore (type species virescens Moore,
Himalaya); Malachitis Hampson (type species melanochlora Hampson =
preangerensts Heylaerts); Melia Walker (type species costalis)
praeocc.; Neocifuna Inoue (type species eurydice Butler, Japan).
This genus was also revived from synonymy by Holloway (1982b) for
further species misplaced in Dasychira. It has recently (Kishida, 1996)
been expanded to include the species previously referred to Neocifuna. The
male forewing facies is shades of green or brown, and the females are larger,
fully winged, usually more or less similar in facies to the males.
The diagnostic feature is a slender, strongly curved aedeagus that is
fused to a rod-like juxta near its base. The valve is variable in form, but
usually apically bifid with a finger-like dorsal part overlapping a broader,
less sclerotised ventral part. There is typically a harpe on the valve sacculus,
though this is absent in subgenus Cadrusia, a group of species where the
aedeagus is more slender, the genitalia more ovate, and the hindwing with
extensive areas of yellow (the last two treated below).
The genus is most diverse in the Asian mainland, particularly the
Himalayan region, China and Japan, and does not extend east of Sundaland. The
Sumatran fauna is somewhat richer than that of Borneo (Schintlmeister, 1994),
having eleven species compared with eight.
Larvae of Japanese species (in Neocifuna) were illustrated by
Sugi (1987). There is a dorsal brush on A8, though shorter than those on A1-4.
The head is flanked by a pair of long hair-pencils. These features are also seen
in the type species, costalis, illustrated in Horsfield & Moore (1859
[1860]).
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