Bulletin - United States National Museum

MICROLEPIDOPTERA OF PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 267
Labial palpus ascending, not flattened laterally; nocturnal species, differently
colored 13
13. Scape of antenna with pecten; labial palpus distinctly curved, ascending,
median segment with a long brush of scales below, terminal segment
smooth, pointed
Tinissa
Scape of antenna without pecten, often flattened and dilated; labial palpus
little
curved, obliquely ascending, rather slender,ro ughish below, obtuse.
Haplotinea
Gerontha Walker, 1864
Gerontha Walker, 1864, List Lepidopterous Insects British Mus., pt. 29, p. 782
(type species: G. captiosella Walker, 1864, Ceylon).—^Fletcher, 1929, Mem.
Dept. Agric. India, Ent. ser., vol. 11, p. 98.—Diakonoff, 1955, Verh. Ned.
Akad. Wet., Nat., ser. 2, vol. 50, no. 3, p. 115.
This remarkable genus has never been redescribed. The discovery
of a couple of new species necessitates some extension of the concept
of Gerontha, and I use this opportunity to present a redescription.
Head often enlarged, with dense, loosely appressed scales. Ocellus
absent. Proboscis very short. Antenna under 1, ciliated in male,
ciliations 1-1 K, simple in female, scape slightly flattened, without
pecten. Labial palpus curved and ascending, moderate or rather long,
basal and median segments strongly dilated and expanded below by
roughly projecting scales, a series of lateral bristles, sometimes also
larger apical bristles; terminal segment slender, more or less pointed,
hardly flattened, shorter than median. Maxillary palpus short, filiform,
three-jointed and folded. Thorax without a crest. Abdomen
with two lateral keels or crests along its apical half, these crests
becoming subdorsal and converging on anal segments in the two sexes.
(Posterior wall of mesothorax and anterior wall of metathorax partly
closed by large and thin white membranes, resembling tympanal
organs. Perhaps because of these membranes mounted specimens
easily break at this place.) Anterior tibia sometimes with strong
spines in middle, and usually with a tuft of bristly scales and a couple
of spines at the apex.
Posterior tibia elongate, covered with bristly
hairs above and beneath, posterior tarsus often strongly elongate.
Forewing narrow and elongate, top rounded; a brush of dark hairs
originating from the side of the mesothorax between bases of wings,
appressed to the underside of the forewing; with large tufts of raised
scales. Vein lb furcate, 2 from angle in cT, from angle or from well
before angle in 9; veins 3 and 4 stalked, stalk out of base of 2, or
connate with 2 from angle, or stalk separate from 2, from angle (when
2 originates before angle), 5-7 parallel, 7 to apex, stalked with 8,
sometimes stalk connate with 9 from upper angle of cell, 9 out of
stalk beyond its base, or 9 free, from before angle. Vein 11 from
1/3 of cell.
237-168—67 18