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Calymera Moore
Type
species: picta Moore, India.
Synonym: Ranaja Moore (type
species fasciata Moore, India)
syn. n.
This and the next genus
now include the bulk of
diversity in the old concept of Carea of Hampson (1912), though this
excludes the mainly greyish species now placed in Didigua. They
essentially coincide with groups C and D of Holloway (1976). Ranaja Moore
is included as a synonym of Calymera, the latter having page priority,
and the former having the triangular projections laterally on the male A5 that
provide the only reliable external method of distinguishing Calymera
species from Xenochroa species. Both genera include a great range of
facies, but this usually involves transverse antemedial and postmedial fasciae,
the latter almost always single and only ever intersecting the dorsum when
distinctly oblique. In Calymera the forewing submarginal is usually
punctate, often triarcuate; in Xenochroa it is more diffuse and
straighter. The genera are best defined on features of the male abdomen, though
the females also provide diagnostic features.
In
the male abdomen, both genera have small pencils of setae at each side basally
of the fourth sternite; these are smaller but more well defined in Calymera,
and associated with basally directed lobes just interior to each patch. The
tymbal organs are deep, relatively complex, and with broad apodemes (Fig. 234).
The lateral triangular projections of the fifth segment in Calymera have
already been mentioned; these often have a robust spine at the apex. The
excavation of the basal margin of the eighth tergite is angular in Calymera
(Figs 245, 246) and circular in Xenochroa. The uncus is tapering but
apically blunt in Calymera, but narrower throughout and apically acute in
Xenochroa (Figs 247, 248). The subscaphium is broad, rhomboidal in
Calymera, much narrower in Xenochroa. The tegumen is more strongly
expanded towards the junction with the vinculum in Xenochroa, and the
ends of the vinculum are more strongly clubbed. The saccus is broader in
Calymera and usually distinctly constricted at its base. The valves in both
genera are paddle-like, but the paddle is broader in Calymera but on a
shorter neck; the ventrally directed setae on the paddle are more numerous but
less conspicuous than in Xenochroa. The valve costal process is often
broad, erect, or only slightly angled toward the base in Calymera,
whereas it is more thumb-like and distinctly angled basad in most Xenochroa.
The aedeagus apex often has spines in Calymera but not in Xenochroa;
the vesica has two diverticula (one is effectively the ductus ejaculatorius)
terminating in clusters of spines, rather than globular with a single cluster of
slender spines.
In the female the ostium is more strongly cleft in Xenochroa. The
ductus is broader and more crinkled basally in Calymera. The bursa is
pyriform in Calymera, with fine, somewhat concentric crinkling; a small,
rather balloon-like appendix bursae arises from it centrally on a narrow stalk.
The signum is weak or absent, usually only a sclerotised plate with a central
nipple. In Xenochroa the bursa has a central constriction, with a robust
‘golf tee’ signum in the distal part and an appendix bursae arising from the
basal one. The sample of female dissections for each genus is much smaller than
that for males.
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