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Sitvia Walker
Type species: denudata Walker.
Synonym: Kettelia Butler (type species lowii Butler = denudata).
This genus consists of large, broad-winged species like Birnara, but
they are more robust, the wings a rather translucent brownish white with
slightly darker shading marginally and submarginally, and also in the spaces of
the forewing in some specimens. The venation of the forewing is similar to that
of Lymantria, without an areole and with R2 branching off before R5 within
Rs. In the
hindwing all veins arise independently from the cell.
The male abdomen has tymbals. The uncus consists of an acute triangular
apical process arising centrally from a broad semicircular basal part. The
valves are twice as long as wide, with a stepped ventral margin that has a row
of fine setae; the apex bears an irregular field of coarser ones. The aedeagus
is short.
The female genitalia have a broad eighth segment containing a rather
unusually structured ostial plate as illustrated. The ductus is very short and
the bursa is elongate with a longitudinal, ribbon-like signum consisting of
transverse small spines directed laterally from the centre. There is a large
appendix bursae, rare in Lymantriidae.
The male genitalia are not unlike those of the Arctornithini, though
lacking the valve processes, but the characters of the female do not support
this. The brief note on the pupa of the type species (See
Sitvia denudata Walker) is consistent
with the situation in Arctornithini. Apart from the species below, there are two
named taxa in the Philippines.
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