Miscellaneous Genera I
View Image Gallery of Miscellaneous Genera I.

Erygia Guenée

Type species: apicalis Guenée, East Indies.

Synonyms: Ansa Walker (type species filipalpis Walker, Sri Lanka = precedens Walker) syn. n.; Briarda Walker (type species precedens Walker, Sri Lanka) syn. n.; Calicula Walker (type species exempta Walker, India = apicalis); Erygansa Bethune-Baker (type species kebea Bethune-Baker, New Guinea = precedens) syn. n.; Felinia Guenée (type species spissa Guenée, Bangladesh) syn. n.

Felinia and its current synonyms are brought in to synonymy with Erygia, because of shared features of facies in the two type species, though there are also shared features in the male and female genitalia. Erygia has page priority over Felinia.

On the forewing, there are three features that occur though the genus, but are particularly noticeable in the type species: a dark block on the costa just dorsal to the submarginal that has a concave distal edge; a centrally angled antemedial with a dark black interior to its dorsal section; a slightly punctate black delineation of the highly sinuous to zig-zag course of the postmedial round the reniform, it curving basad just dorsal to the reniform, then turning more sharply back to run to the dorsum. This last feature is more angled in the other species and encloses a triangular dark mark on the costa. The hindwings are generally more uniform, but may grade paler basad and be irregularly fasciated paler near the margin. In the male, the femur and tibia of the foreleg are densely tufted with scales ventrally, and the hindtibia is also thickly scaled. The male antennae are ciliate, the cilia short.

In the male abdomen, the eighth sternite in most species is somewhat ovate and can have a slight pouch anteriorly. In
apicalis it is more strongly modified (Fig 180), though not in the framed corematous manner. The tergite has a clearly defined sclerite within it in the form of a pair of measuring calipers, the handle flanked by sparse groups of dark setae. The sternite in apicalis narrows in a stepped manner in its centre, the distal section being bifid. The tergite in other species has apodemes, broad, slightly splayed, from which it narrows posteriorly to a square distal margin, with sclerotisation on each side and along that margin (in E. antecedens Walker these sclerites are more elongate but similarly structured). The ductus of the genitalia is various, the valves strikingly quadrifid in spissa, and triangular or rounded with central processes in the other species. The juxta is of the inverted ‘V’ or ‘Y’ type, though this is not clear in spissa.


In the female genitalia, the ostium is set anteriorly within the seventh segment, covered by an antevaginal plate from the sternite. The ductus is variable in length and sclerotisation, the latter being restricted to a short, laterally scrolled section in all except
spissa. The corpus bursae is generally scobinate and has a prominent, elongate appendix bursae in all except E. precedens Walker.

The genus consists of the four species described below and
reflectifascia Hampson from the Indian Subregion. Poole also listed the Indian species sigillata Butler, but this has long been regarded as a hypenine in the genus Rhynchina Guenée (e.g. Mayerl & Lödl, 1999).

The characteristics of the larvae in apicalis and spissa also indicate close relationship, especially the possession of a fringe of filaments, as discussed below. Host records are all from Leguminosae, including E. reflectifascia on Cassia (Robinson et al., 2001).

<<Back >>Forward <<Return to Content Page



Copyright © Southdene Sdn. Bhd. All rights reserved.