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Orudiza
Walker
Type species: protheclaria Walker.
The forewing has typical epiplemine venation, with R1 and usually R2
arising independently from R3+4 at the cell: R2 can arise relatively basally
from the latter system. The margin is excavate between M1 and M3. In the
hindwing M2 is present, and M3 and CuA1 are stalked, diverging to support the
characteristic double tail: there is an angle also at CuA2. A similar forewing
margin and double tail to the hindwing are seen in some Neotropical genera such
as Psamathia Walker, Aorista Warren, Trotorhombia Warren
and Nedusia Hübner, but M3 and CuA1 lack a common stalk in Psamathia,
being connate basally and there is no marginal angle at CuA2. In the other
three genera there is a stalk to M3 and CuA1 and also a marginal angle at CuA2.
All these genera have strongly bipectinate male antennae, whereas in Orudiza these
are uniserrate, lamellate. The facies is distinctive with strong, straight, dark
fasciae on a grey ground. Similar fasciation is seen in some of the Neotropical
genera mentioned and also in the monobasic New Guinea genus Cirrhura Warren
where the hindwing is similar to that of Psamathia but the male antennae
are as in Orudiza.
Characters of male genitalia also indicate that, despite similarities of
facies and wing shape, these genera are not particularly closely related. Psamathia
and Trotorhombia have a divided gnathus whereas this is lacking in Orudiza.
In Cirrhura it is present, entire, distally lobed. The uncus is
diagnostically long, narrow, tapering in Orudiza: it is broadly divided
in Cirrhura as in Dysaethria Turner (See
Dysaethria
Turner), weak in Trotorhombia
and vestigial in Psamathia. The valves of Orudiza are
elongate, similar to those of baptine geometrids in the Synegia group of
genera discussed by Holloway (1993[4]), with a zone of dorsally directed setae
arising from just interior to the ventral margins, and spines centrally and
distally from the costa. However, there is a distinctive furca-like structure
distally on the juxta that appears to articulate with the valve transtillae.
The female genitalia have the lamellae vaginales developed into a weak
pocket. The ductus is short, the ostium wide. The bursa is asymmetrically
pyriform with a basal lobe, a broadly, irregularly spined signum subbasally and
a smaller, typically uraniid double one more distally.
The biology of the single species is described below.
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