Lophomilia Warren

Type species: polybapta Butler, Japan.

This genus was assigned to the Acontiinae by Nye (1975) reflecting the placement at that time. However, Sugi in Inoue et al. (1982) placed it in the Ophiderinae immediately preceding a small sequence of genera that included Hepatica Staudinger. Yoshimoto (1993b) followed this assignment when describing two new species from Nepal and recording the Japanese species L. takao Sugi there for the first time. Hepatica was placed by Holloway (2008) in the Mecistoptera Hampson group of genera within the Hypeninae. This would appear to be a valid placement also for Lophomilia and the sequence of Japanese genera that Sugi associated with Hepatica. The ornamentation of the valves of the male genitalia of the Nepalese species described by Yoshimoto is similar to that seen in Mecistoptera, with prominent subcostal and saccular processes the latter arising from a subbasal position. Such processes are present in the Japanese flaviplaga Warren and also in polybapta, but reduced in the latter species, with the valves broader, having a slender, tongue-like process extending from the centre of the costa. The monobasic genus Wilemaniella Sugi (Inoue et al., 1982) has an elongate valve with a central pleat as in some Acidon Hampson species (Holloway, 2008). The phragma lobes between the first two abdominal tergites in Lophomilia are large, triangular, as in other members of the Mecistoptera group, a feature shared with core Hypeninae. The structure of the male eighth abdominal segment is also consistent with this placement, the tergite having sclerotisation reduced to the apodemes diverging from the anterior end of a slender central band, and the sternite having a delicate frame, open at the posterior margin, and, in the Bornean species, having a weak pair of coremata anteriorly. The structure of the female genitalia is also consistent as discussed below.

The facies is distinctive as described for the Bornean species below, though the obliqueness and angulation are less developed in polybapta, and there is no striation along the veins. The labial palps are slender, directed forwards, between two and three times the length of the head.

The features of the male genitalia are diverse as discussed above; those of the Bornean species are atypical, long, narrow, with a slight longitudinal pleat, and only a small, subbasal, saccular process evident.

The female genitalia of polybapta have the ostium (with a crescent-shaped antrum) within an extensive pocket, finely and deeply pitted throughout, within the ventral part of the eighth segment; the apodemes are exterior to this, slender and curved. The corpus bursae is more pyriform, with more extensive longitudinal corrugations, and with a small scobinate plate near the apex.

Sugi (1987) illustrated the larvae of the three Japanese species: the type species, flaviplaga Warren and takao Sugi. All are elongate, slender, tapering gently from the head to the anal segments, where the anal claspers are splayed out behind. They are semi-loopers with the prolegs on A3 and, to a lesser extent, A4 reduced, as in other genera of the Mecistoptera group. They are shades of green, banded or (takao) obliquely variegated with darker areas. The primary setae may be on chalazae; these are not evident in polybapta, small in the more emerald green flaviplaga, and strongly developed in takao, giving the larva a warty appearance.

All three species feed on Quercus (Fagaceae).

The genus consists of three species in Japan, one extending to join two others in Nepal, with one species in Borneo. Poole (1989) also lists variegata Hampson from Sikkim, a species originally described in Mecistoptera.