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Pachyodes
Guenée
Type species: almaria
Guenée = haemataria Herrich-Schäffer, India.
Synonyms: Archaeopseustes
Warren (type species amplificata Walker, China)
The name Pachyodes is
the oldest available for the Pseudoterpniti species previously referred to the
genus Terpna Herrich-Schäffer, an incorrect subsequent spelling of Terpne
Hübner, a junior objective synonym of Geometra Linnaeus (Fletcher,
1979). There are a number of other genus-group names available from the synonymy
of this erroneous concept of Terpna, and it is therefore advisable to
re-examine the definition of the whole group with reference to genitalic
characters.
The following groups
should be set apart from Pachyodes and the next genus, as they differ in
significant genitalic features. In two the male antennae are
small,
filiform, rather than being narrowly bipectinate: Calleremites Warren Gen.
rev. (type species subornata Warren, Sikkim) and Psilotagma Warren
Gen. rev. (type species decorata Warren, Bhutan). In both the
uncus is strong, if slender, and the socii are relatively small, a far cry from
the condition in the Bornean taxa in the old Terpna concept where the
uncus has been replaced by fused socii as in Pingasa and Dindica: the
facies of both is also distinctive. In Absala Swinhoe Gen. rev. (type
species dorcada Swinhoe, N.E. Himalaya) and Dindicodes Prout Gen.
rev. (type species crocina Butler, N. India) there is a punctate
modification of the underside black markings as in Pachyodes but the male
genitalia also indicate these are distinct genera, though both with the uncus
vestigial. In Dindicodes, which has a Dindica-like appearance with
yellow hindwings, the socii are strikingly reflexed and the valves are
ornamented with costal and ventral sclerotised plates: the genus should probably
include another six mainland Asian species with similar facies. In Absala the
socii are largely separate, coremata are absent, the saccus is well developed,
the valve is divided into a dorsal paddle-like portion more than twice the
length of a ventral triangular one; the gnathus is broad, rather massive.
Pachista Prout Gen. rev. (type species superans Butler, Japan) is a
monobasic genus, the type species being large, Pingasa-like, with a
rather uniform grey facies. The uncal structure of the male genitalia is as in Pingasa,
Pachyodes and the next two genera but the valve ornamentation is distinctive
(see Inoue, 1961). The underside markings have the discal spots of both wings
large. The genus is probably best kept distinct.
Pachyodes has upperside facies similar to that in the next genus in that the
forewing postmedial is distinctly concave distad over the posterior two thirds,
but the markings generally are more irregular, with a diagnostic longitudinal
streak submarginally in the space between CuAl and CuA2 on the hindwings. On the
underside the typical Pseudoterpniti black bands are broken up into a more
punctate configuration.
In the male genitalia
the uncal structure is as in Pingasa, the gnathus apically acute, rugose,
entire, and the valves are diagnostically bilobed, with small coremata. The
aedeagus is broad, distally coarsely scobinate. The third abdominal sternite has
a pair of setal patches.
In the female the bursa
is large, rather triangular, immaculate, set on a moderate but narrow ductus.
The lamellae vaginales are broadly crinkled.
The genus as here recognised contains the type species, the species from
Borneo below, and the following: P. subtrita Prout (Taiwan, Tonkin); P. ornataria Moore (N.E. Himalaya); P. leucomelanaria Poujade (W. China)
and P. amplificata Walker (China).
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