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Mesotrophe Hampson Gen. rev.
Type species: maximaria Guenée.
This genus consists of a few rather large species from the old Anisodes
complex, many of which were assigned to a Mesotrophe section of the
genus by Prout (1938, Gross-Schmett. Erde 12: 169) that was defined on
the peculiarity of male forewing venation described below. A number of features
of the male genitalia are also definitive, and serve to bring in further species
that lack the venation character. The fasciation of the wings is somewhat
broader and more diffuse than in related genera.
The male forewing typically has the cell short, the cross veins oblique,
weak, widely separating M2 from Rs and M1. Rs arises from near the apex of the
medial areole, M1 from the anterior angle of the cell, and they run close
together sinuously to about two thirds towards the margin from the cell, where
M1 curves away strongly towards the dorsum. Veins from M2 posteriorly are rather
closer together than is usual in the Cosymbiini. This feature is much weaker in
all the other species except the last listed below, where the venation is
unmodified.
The male abdomen lacks coremata. The genitalia are
massive, the uncus represented by two widely separated spine-like processes. The
valves are often rather rectangular, the costal and saccular processes occuring
towards the apex of the valve. The aedeagus is relatively short, broad.
In the female, the bursa copulatrix is narrow, pyriform, tapering gently to the
ductus, with a fine rugosity throughout. The
ostium is set in a slight pouch.
The genus consists of the five species that occur in
Borneo and the Australasian sister-species of two of them, also mentioned in the
text following. All appear to be lowland species.
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