Decticryptis Hampson

Type species: deleta Moore, Sri Lanka.

This was considered to be a monobasic genus (Poole, 1989), but deleta has proved to be a complex. The facies is described below. Hampson (1910) illustrated features of the head and wing venation. The labial palps are upturned, very slender, hardly reaching the centre of the frons. The male antennae are slightly fasciculate, the cilia short. There is a tuft of scales at the anterior of the basal joint. The forewing margin is excavate between the apex and CuA1. One of the radial veins has been lost, with R1 and R2 arising independently from the cell, and the two others being stalked, branching nearer the apex than the point of departure from the cell, the anterior branch meeting the apex. The hindwing has the costa slightly concave over its distal half. M3 and CuA1 are stalked. The abdomen lacks phragma lobes between the first two tergites. The apodemes of the basal sternite are very slender, and there is a slight tooth centrally between them in the concave anterior margin of the sternite.

The male abdomen has a modified eighth segment but not obviously of the framed corematous type. The tergite is about two-thirds of the width of the sternite, and both sclerites have their posterior margins strongly bilobed. The anterior margins have apodemes set at their lateral extremities, those of the sternite are short and thick if present, and those of the tergite slender and half the length of the main portion. The genitalia have a short, slender uncus, slightly to moderately bulbous subapically, and with a small apical hook. The juxta is broad, tending towards circular. The valves are triangular, distally bifid into the cucullus and a slender costal spine with a narrow cleft between them. The sacculus is slightly produced ventrally, and the ventral margin has an obtuse central angle with shallow concavities over the rest of the margin on each side. The aedeagus is very large relative to the rest of the genitalia, uniformly curved somewhat as in Hyposada, with a vesica that has a major diverticulum that, if everted, would probably be mostly covered with reversed spines (no full eversion was achieved).

The female genitalia have the ostium and ductus bursae broad, reflecting the size of the aedeagus, and the corpus bursae is sausage-shaped, with a strongly spiralled ductus seminalis (reminiscent of Hydrillodes Guenée in the Herminiinae; see Holloway (2008)) arising from the basal section adjacent to some irregular sclerotisation. Distal to this are small spines arranged irregularly, or sometimes in an arc, then a regular girdle of longer spines situated approximately centrally. The corpus bursae distal to this may have some scobination, sometimes ringing it. The girdle of spines is similar to that seen in Arasada and Hyposada.

The Old World tropical genus Holocryptis Lucas (type species  phasianura Lucas, Queensland) is closely related with similar venation, but lacking the excavate forewing margin, and similar male and female abdominal features, though with the male valves entire or only slightly bilobed and sometimes with interior processes. Decticryptis may prove to be merely a section of Holocryptis when the latter has been studied in more detail.

The facies of Decticryptis consists of buff or more darkly irrorated fasciation, with dark discal dashes on all wings flanked by antemedial and postmedial fasciae. These are sinuous with concavities in opposition on the hindwing, and angled subcostally on the forewing, the angle of the postmedial being stronger but truncated in the type species and one from Borneo.`
There appear to be several species in the genus, with two new ones described below. A male from Japan (Mikyo; slide 21371) has wing shape and facies much as in typical deleta, but the genitalia are more as in producta sp. n.