Asthenini Warren, 1893

Viidalepp, Jaan, 2011, A morphological review of tribes in Larentiinae (Lepidoptera: Geometridae), Zootaxa 3136, pp. 1-44 : 16-17

Tribe Asthenini Warren, 1893

( Figs 53–57 )

The tribe was established (as Astheninae) by Warren (1893), characterized according to genitalia by Pierce (1914) and recently revised by Xue and Scoble (2002). Pierce described its characters as follows: valva in male with sacculus projecting long; female bursa copulatrix with a long, evenly spined signum; uncus weak and attached to dorsal side of anus tube, whereas ventral side of the tube bears a sclerotized subscaphium.

Holloway (1997: 121), discussing the relations between Eupitheciini and Asthenini , noted that labides are not entirely similar in these tribes by the absence in asthenines of the branch from basal costal projection of valva towards juxta. The absence of saccular projection of valva is stressed by Pierce as another characteristic of Eupitheciini but not in Asthenini . However, Holloway grouped the relevant Indo-Australian asthenine genera to Eupitheciini according to: the presence of labides, “Springing from the points of union of the transtilla with the costa, there may arise two long arms, each bearing a soft hairy pad, and united together by a thin membrane”. Forbes (1948) found the chaetosemata of Asthenini united by a continuous row of setae in a deep groove between scales of vertex ( Figs 5, 7 ).

McGuffin (1958) distinguished the larvae of Asthenini as follows: the spinneret is much longer than the labial palpi; the thoracic claws are almost straight, and the angle of the notch acute.

Xue and Scoble (2002) diagnosed the asthenine as follows: uncus distal projection either absent or vestigial; uncus fused to the anal tube; the authors reject the idea of homology of asthenine and eupitheciine labides, and suppose that the build of signum in female (consisting of thin spines radiating from the central area) is the best characteristic for the tribe.

Large coremata loosely attached to the base of valva in Australian Poecilasthena Warren ( Fig. 54 ) may be homologous, or not to those in Eupitheciini which are more tightly fused to valva base ( Fig. 48 ). There are some synapomorphies restricted to the subclades of Asthenini : frons high and broad, cylindrical, projecting; palpi short and weak (longer in Eois Hübner ); colliculum flattened and re-folded in female at least in boreal genera; bursa copulatrix finely spiculose.

Asthenini and Chesiadini share the presence of long projections from the base of costa, which are not not connected to the juxta ( Fig. 56 ). These bear setose heads in Asthenini , but not in Chesiadini .

Distribution: Indo-Australian, Holarctic, (Afrotropical, Neotropical).

Figures

FIGURES 53 – 57, Male and female genitalia of Chesiadini and Asthenini. 53, Female genitalia of Lithostege usgentaria Christoph (Turkmenistan); 54, male genitalia and the last sternite and tergite of Poecilasthena sp. (Tasmania); 55, female genitalia of Poecilasthena sp. (Tasmania); 56, male genitalia of Nomenia duodecimlineata (U. S. A.); 57, male genitalia of “ Gen, sp. 7591 ” (Paraguay).

FIGURES 5 – 10. Heads in Stamnodini, Eudulini Asthenini and Trichopterygini. 5, Stamnodini (Callipia sp.) (Bolivia); 6, Stamnodini (Stamnodes danilovi Erschov) (Touva); 7, Asthenini (Discoloxia blomeri (Curtis )); 8, Rheumapterini (Spargania luctuata Denis & Schiffermüller.); 9, Chesiadini (Aplocera columbata (Mentzer )) (Crimea); 10, Trichopterygini (Rhopalodes lecorrei Viidalepp), antenna (Fr. Guiana).

FIGURES 48 – 52, Male and female genitalia of Eupitheciini and Perizonini. 48, Male genitalia, coremata hair pencils and sternite A 8 of Eupithecia cauchiata (Duponchel); 49, male genitalian armature of Eupithecia absinthiata (Clerck); 50, male genitalian armature of Perizoma sp.; 51, female genitalia of Eupithecia abbreviata Stephens; 52, male genitalia of Psaliodes sp. (Bolivia).