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Zythos Fletcher
Type species: turbata Walker.
Synonym: Nobilia Walker (type species turbata)
praeocc.
This genus was reviewed by Prout (1932b) under the preoccupied name
(Fletcher, 1979) Nobilia. It contains robust species of variable facies
but always with fine transverse striations in extensive areas of the wings. The
forewing discal mark is often lunulate. The underside is uniform ochreous in
many species, particularly those with more striking uppersides.
The male antennae are serrate with tufts of cilia, those of the female filiform. The male hind-legs are reduced, but have a strong tibial hair-pencil,
and the first tarsal joint is densely tufted.
In the male abdomen the pouch on the second sternite is large. The
eighth sternite is heavily sclerotised, with strong apodemes, distally
asymmetric, but without cerata. The genitalia are also heavily sclerotised,
elongate, with socii prominent, or reduced to protruberances from the tegumen.
In the female the sterigma is sclerotised, complex, the signum elongated
with a band, but with the spines still separated apart from a narrow band along
the axis.
The genus ranges from India to New Guinea, with eleven species, four of
which occur in Borneo, with two new Philippines species recently described by
Yazaki (1996b). Nothing is known of the early stages but the adults occur
predominantly in the understorey of lowland rainforest and were taken in
carrion-baited pitfall traps by Dr I. Hanski during the Mulu survey. Chey
(1994) recorded the three commoner Bornean species frequently in secondary
forest also.
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