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Pantydia Guenée
Type
species: sparsa Guenée, type locality not known [Australia].
Synonym:
Rhiscipha
Walker
(type species scissa Walker, Congo).
Species
typical of Pantydia are relatively robust within the tribe, and share a
number of facies characters, including a general grey, buff and brown colour
with localised black marking. The patagia grade blackish distally to give the
effect of a black collar, but this black is not as extensive as in Lygephila Billberg and
does not extend to the head. The forewings are extensively speckled and
striated darker, but the only clear fascia is a straight, pale, narrow,
transverse line that is approximately submarginal. This has more irregular
blackish markings immediately basally and distally. there
is a more obscure antemedial fascia that can include a small, clearly defined
black spot or hieroglyph subdorsally. The reniform may stand out paler amid
surrounding dark shading. The hindwings are more uniform, with a broad, darker
border and usually a much narrower diffuse dark fascia just basal to it. On the
underside, all wings are pale, uniform with broad blackish borders that stop
just short of the margin. The male antennae vary, being serrate - fasciculate
in the type species, with a nodal swelling at one quarter in capistrata Lucas
(Australia, New Caledonia), and ciliate in metaspila Walker, the
species recorded from Borneo. The labial palps are of the typical catocaline
type.
In the
male abdomen, the eighth segment is unmodified or, in the type species, with a
single corema at the base of the sternite but without lateral framing. The
genitalia do not show asymmetry in the valves but otherwise accord with the
tribal characteristics. They have the uncus robust with a ‘ball and claw’ apex,
the cleft within it very narrow. There is a scaphium. The valves are simple,
narrow, without processes, but with a definite costa. The juxta is an irregular
version of the inverted ‘Y’ type. The aedeagus vesica is large with many
diverticula and areas of scobination and coarser spining.
The
female genitalia (sparsa, metaspila) have the ostium just within the posterior of the
reduced and tapering seventh sternite, which is weakly bilobed where it covers
the ostium. The ductus is sclerotised in two sections joined by a short
membranous part. The more basal is longer in sparsa but shorter in metaspila; the distal
part is laterally scrolled in metaspila. The corpus bursae has a distinct appendix bursae that coils into the
ductus seminalis, and is rounded in sparsa but narrow,
elongate in metaspila. In both, the area adjacent to the ductus is
scobinate, more strongly so in sparsa, and there is a
small scobinate signum near the apex.
The
genus is diverse in Africa (though only P. scissa may be truly
typical), but only P. metaspila Walker occurs widely
in the Indo-Australian tropics. Several species occur in Australia (Nielsen et al., 1996) and two
extend to New Caledonia
(Holloway, 1979). The taxon metaphaea Hampson is currently placed in Pantydia but probably
incorrectly so as discussed below.
The
type species has been recorded as feeding on Dillwynia, Medicago (Leguminosae)
and Exocarpos (Santalaceae) in Australia (Common, 1990). The host
of P.
metaspila is also in the Leguminosae (see below).
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