Chrysocraspeda Swinhoe

Type species: abhadraca Walker.

Synonyms: Ptochophyle Warren (type species notata Warren, New Guinea) syn. n.; Chrysolene Warren (type species deviaria Walker = faganaria Guenée (see Yazaki (1996a) for homonymy of togata Fabricius), Sri Lanka) syn. n.; Heteroctenis Meyrick (type species dracontias Meyrick).

The genera Chrysocraspeda and Ptochophyle have until now been treated as distinct, mainly on presence or absence of an areole in the forewing venation (Prout, 1938, Gross-Schmett. Erde 12: 158).The constancy of features of the male and female genitalia indicates that it would be preferable to bring them together in one large genus.

Most species are brightly and conspicuously marked, with a great variety of pattern and wing shape. Male antennae are usually bipectinate, those of the female, with a few exceptions, filiform.

Features of the male abdomen are diagnostic: The sternites narrow towards the apex of the abdomen (Fig 9), the eighth having the narrowest sclerotisation, central, triangular; the uncus is reduced to a short, tongue-like structure, with setae along the lateral margins or even divided into two socius like structures. The valve is simple, narrow, with a long spine arising from the centre of the base and extending almost to the valve apex or in some cases beyond it; the sacculus has a number of dark, rather needle-like setae; the aedeagus often has a digitate lobe apically or a spined structure; the vesica is globular, with diverticulae and occasionally cornuti.

The female ovipositor lobes are distinctive, directed ventrally, each somewhat arched, and having dark rugosity over their surface amongst the setae. Their bases are linked ventrally by a sclerite shaped somewhat like a sting-ray (see Figs 12, 14). The membrane dorsal to the ovipositor lobes is usually rather balloon-like. When ornamentation is present in the bursa, this consists of a pair of scobinate signa, usually circular, sometimes elongated parallel to each other longitudinally.

In both sexes the tympanic bullae are separated by the basal margin of the second sternite which is distinctively semicircular and usually thickened in a narrow strip (Fig 10).

The larvae and pupae of two species are described later, and those of two more are described by Bigger (1988). The pupa is typical of the cosymbiines, square-shouldered and girdled.

Host-plants have been noted in several plant families but there are several records for the Eugenia/Syzygium complex in Myrtaceae (e.g. Singh, 1953; Zhang, 1994; species records below). Bigger (1988) described two species feeding on Terminalia (Combretaceae) in the Solomons. Yunus & Ho (1980) recorded C. dischista Prout from Adenanthera (Leguminosae) in Peninsular Malaysia.

The genus is extremely diverse throughout the Old World tropics and subtropics, with particular richness in Madagascar, Sundaland and New Guinea. The easterly limits are in the Solomons. There are at least thirty species in Borneo. These tend to be rather rare and mostly recorded from the lowlands, often from swamp forest.