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Targallodes
Holland
Type species: rufula Holland.
This genus was reviewed by Berio (1957), and contains several African
species. The species vittalba Semper is here tentatively associated with
it for reasons set out below. It has a similar brick-red colour to the forewing,
crossed by a straight, dark medial fascia, and has white subapical marks akin to
those in T. subrubens Mabille. The hindwing has a distinctive basal white
zone not shown by African taxa except subrubens where this zone is
slightly paler brown than the rest.
In the male genitalia the uncus structure, the long tegumen, and the
long, complexly lobed valves all resemble those of the African species, but the
saccus is short rather than long and slender. The aedeagus of all species bears
a row of spines or a zone of scobination subapically, and the vesica contains
large, blunt spines (subrubens), sometimes with dense patches of darkly
sclerotised scobination (rufula, vittalba).
The male eighth abdominal sternite bears a pair of coremata in vittalba;
these are double in rufula.
In the females (subrubens compared) the seventh sternite is
distally cleft but reflexed in vittalba and there are small setose lobes
distally on the lateral membrane of segment 7. The apophyses of segment 8 are
present and thick relative to those of other noctuids. The ductus bursae is
scobinate centrally in both species but complexly spiralled there in subrubens
only. There are numerous small, coarsely scobinate patches in the bursa:
these are apical in subrubens but associated with a pair of subapical
folds and two somewhat larger signa in vittalba (Fig. 41).
The African species polychorda Hampson was not included in Targallodes
by Berio but has somewhat similar facies and male genitalia. It is mentioned
here as it has been recorded as feeding on Leguminosae as a larva, whilst subrubens
has been reared from Citrus (Pinhey 1975).
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