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Catoria
Moore
Type species: sublavaria Guenée.
Prout (1929a) reviewed this genus and presented full synonymies.
The male antennae appear strongly bipectinate to three-quarters but are
in fact quadripectinate, with distal and proximal branches of adjacent segments
closely associated (D. Stüning, in litt.). The facies is distinctive
with rather punctate grey brown fasciation and speckling on a whitish ground.
The discal spots on the upperside are prominent, that on the hindwing
particularly strong, often obliquely elliptical. On the underside the discal
spots are larger than on the upperside, that of the forewing larger than that of
the hindwing, obliquely reniform. There is a setal comb on sternite 3 of the
male.
The principal diagnostic features are in the male genitilia. The uncus
is vestigial or absent, but the tegumen may be expanded vertically. There is a
crest of fine spatulate scales or of spines. The valve is narrowed, with
ornamentation from the ventral edge of the costal margin, a lobe or digitate
process with enlarged setae. The distal part of the sacculus is enlarged,
sclerotised, complex, usually acute, obtusely bifid. The aedeagus vesica is
usually ornamented with anything between general spining (sublavaria) to
a single large process (tamsi - apparently several cornuti fused
together); C. proicyrta Prout lacks cornuti.
In the female genitalia (sublavaria), the sterigma is broadly
bilobed, the ductus short; the basal half of the bursa is narrow, cylindrical,
fluted, the distal half asymmetrically globular, lacking a signum.
The early stages of the type species are described below. The pupal
cremaster is typical of the Boarmiini complex, the apex minutely bifid, each
fork bearing setae (Bell, MS). Bigger (1988) described the larva of the Solomons
endemic, C. parva, as having a shiny metallic blue-black body and an
orange head. The host plant was Campnosperma (Anacardiaceae).
The genus is widely distributed in the Indo-Australian tropics. Many
species are also geographically widespread, and three out of the four in Borneo
are found in a range of habitats. Neotropical taxa currently in Catoria are
misplaced (Prout, 1929a).
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