SUBFAMILY HERMINIINAE
View Image Gallery of Subfamily Herminiinae

Raphiscopa Hampson

Type species: invenusta Swinhoe, Sumatra = undulata Felder & Rogenhofer.

This genus shares with Bertula Walker the presence of an orbicular stigma on the hindwing underside, male labial palps that are recurved over to reach the thorax, sometimes with hair-scales associated with the third segment, and a tufted and sheathed foretibia associated with a spur on the first tarsal segment. The male antennae vary from ciliate (though always with a pair of longer bristles on each flagellomere) through fasciculate to slightly (serrata Prout) or strongly (albipunctata sp. n.) bipectinate. The forewing facies has all fasciae more irregular than in Bertula, with some degree of crenulation, and with the postmedial tending to have two lobes extending distad where it extends round the discal mark. The medial area is sometimes (e.g. the type species) paler than the more basal or distal areas, but never so conspicuously as in many Bertula. The hindwings have the paler postmedial and submarginal fasciae as in Bertula. Some species have a long flap under the forewing costa in the male.

The male abdomen is as in Bertula. The genitalia are also similar, but the valves are mostly more consistently narrow, tapering, with slight angles on dorsal and ventral margins subapically and also subbasally on the costa. Very coarse spining in the aedeagus vesica is also more frequent.

The female genitalia (viridialis sp. n.) have a very narrow ductus bursae that is of moderate length with longitudinal sclerotisation almost throughout. The corpus bursae is large, ovate to pyriform, with the ductus seminalis arising basally; there is a zone of scobination on one side subbasally, corrugated longitudinally around an elongate central zone of denser scobination that represents a slight signum.

The genus appears to be diverse and predominantly montane in Borneo, and may have its centre of richness in Sundaland. Some of the new species are placed in it tentatively.

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