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Pericyma Herrich-Schäffer
Type
species: albidentaria Freyer, [Russia].
Synonym:
Dugaria
Walker
(type species cilipes Walker,
Congo, South Africa = mendax Walker).
The
facies of all species is similar to that of the species occurring in Borneo,
with a series of numerous fine fasciae undulating more darkly across a paler
ground. The postmedial is usually double and darker to blackish, undulating on
the forewing and much straighter on the hindwing. Most species show great
variability in the shading and highlighting of this general pattern.
The male
antennae are densely fasciculate, sometimes swollen centrally into a node (cruegeri
Butler),
and the legs of that sex are densely invested with scales and hair pencils.
In the
male abdomen, the eighth segment is unmodified. The genitalia have a short,
broadly based uncus with a scaphium associated closely with it and resembling
somewhat a sort of gnathus. The vinculum is longer than the tegumen, and the
valves are short, robust, variously complex apically. The juxta is also of
various forms but not of the inverted ‘V’ or ‘Y’ type. The aedeagus is
fused ventrally to a small, rod-like sclerite that becomes detached with it. The
vesica is relatively simple and lacks cornuti.
In the
female (albidentaria), the ostium is well anterior within the seventh
segment, covered by a short, bilobed antevaginal plate from the reduced sternite.
The ductus is very short, the corpus bursae large, ovate, scobinate throughout,
with a small appendix bursae at its base that gives rise to the ductus seminalis.
The
genus is widespread in the Old World tropics and semi-arid latitudes in the
north (Poole, 1989). The greatest diversity is in Africa and the Indian
Subregion, with only the species below extending through to Australasia.
Bell
(MS) described the larvae of two Indian species, P.
glaucinans Guenée
and P.
umbrina Guenée,
both recorded as adults piercing fruit in Thailand (Kuroko & Lewvanich,
1993). The anterior pair of prolegs is lost and that on A4 is reduced. The
larvae are cylindrical, green, and may be lined with white, yellow and black.
The pupae have a bloom of white powder.
The host
plants, as in P. cruegeri Butler,
are mostly Leguminosae (Robinson et al., 2001): Acacia, Albizia,
Caesalpinia,
Sesbania.
However, there is one record for glaucinans from Coffea (Rubiaceae)
and one for umbrina from Tectona (Verbenaceae).
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