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Phazaca Walker
Type species: erosioides Walker.
Synonyms: Balantiucha Turner (type species microthyris Turner,
Thursday I. (Australia)) syn. n.; Dirades Walker (type species binotata
Walker, Sri Lanka) syn. n.; Diradopsis Warren (type species perfallax
Warren, Kei Is.) syn. n.; Homoplexis Warren (type species plenimargo Warren, New Guinea) syn. n.; Lobogethes
Warren (type species interrupta Warren, Queensland) syn. n.
The concept of Phazaca is here broadened to embrace sexually
dimorphic species with particular (though variable in terms of venation
reduction in the anal area) modification of the male hindwing and features of
the male genitalia. The female genitalia resemble those of Monobolodes, having
a single stellate signum, though less robust (reduced in erosioides and
lost in some other species such as mutans Butler), with finer, smaller
spines: the bursa is globular, the ductus very long and narrow. The male
antennae are narrowly, densely unipectinate, lamellate.
Whilst the female hindwing is usually of the characteristic two-tailed
type, that of the male is more rounded, with tails vestigial or absent. The
space between Sc and Rs is broader than typical, Rs sometimes stalked with M1,
M2 is weak, set posteriorly, and there is occasionally only one branch of CuA
from the cell: between CuA and the anal vein is a zone of dense scaling or a
hair-pencil in a pouch dorsally. The costal margin is often bowed, or sinuous,
with a fringe of long scales on the more basal expansion. The female has a wide
space between Sc and Rs, but there are the usual two branches from CuA, and
there are two anal veins. The postmedial of the male hindwing is usually more
rounded than that of the female which has a more typical epiplemine central
angle.
The male genitalia have a distinctive shape to the valve, with the more
basal, saccular portion separated from the distal part by a constriction and
bearing a basal hair-pencil and sometimes a smaller one above it. The valves and
the genitalia in entirety are elongate, as is the aedeagus, itself supported by
a long, strap-like juxta that is somewhat urn-shaped. The uncus is simple, with
lateral flanges basally that may represent a remnant of the juxta. The valve
transtillae are well developed and meet centrally.
The larva (photographs from Taiwan by S.-H. Yen) is usually irregularly
mottled in black, brown and white, with the black predominant. The primary setae
are strong, set on chalazae, giving the larva a rather knobbly appearance.
Host-plants recorded for members of this extended concept of Phazaca are
all from the Rubiaceae (Browne, 1968; Yunus & Ho, 1980; Miyata, 1983;
Common, 1990; Bell, MS; Chen, 1997; S.-H. Yen, in litt; unpublished
records, IIE and BMNH): Adina, Burttdavya, Canthium, Cinchona, Gardenia,
Morinda, Plectronia, Randia, Tarenna, Timonius, Vangueria, Wendlandia.
The adult has a distinctive resting posture with the forewings scrolled,
held out at right-angles to the body axis, level with the substrate, and the
hindwings enfolding the abdomen.
The genus is most diverse in the Indo-Australian
tropics, and represented in the Afrotropical Region by P. theclata Guenée
comb. n. (Janse, 1932).
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