Mataeomera Butler

Type species: dubia Butler, Queensland.

Synonym: Catoblemma Hampson (type species sumbavensis Hampson, Sumbawa).

Poole (1989) placed Mataeomera as a synonym of Eublemma but retained Catoblemma as distinct. He indicated erroneously that dubia and its genitalia had been illustrated by Holloway (1979). The above synonymy was established by Edwards in Nielsen et al. (1996) without explanation, listing nine species for Australia (12 in Common (1990)), but the type species of Catoblemma does appear to be a Lesser Sunda outlier of an Australian species group around M. dubia, the larvae of which may be specialist feeders as Coccoidea (Common, 1990: 70; Robinson et al., 2001: 97). However, the genus also includes a number of species that are probably not congeneric. Two may be more closely related to Prolophota Hampson (p. 156, and see also Holloway (2008: 214)). Another, renalis Hampson, is discussed below.

Typical Mataeomera species have general size, build and wing shape as in Eublemma, and the genus is best placed in Eublemminae. The forewing facies is a dull medium brown with finely darker antemedial and postmedial fasciae that are angled subcostally; there may also be a similarly angled, but broader and more diffuse medial fascia. Areas outside the fasciae may be irrorated uniformly with pale grey, most intensely outside the medial zone. The hindwing is generally paler basally, grading into a similar brown to the forewing towards the margin. There may be a pale fascia submarginally in the dorsal area. The male genitalia are somewhat as in Eublemma, but with valves broader centrally, with a single, obliquely based central process. The female genitalia differ from those of Eublemma in lacking apodemes to the eighth segment.

Sohn & Ronkay (2001) recognised a distinct Oriental species group that is currently placed in Mataeomera and merits generic status. It is still under study by these authors and others, so the Bornean species will be treated under “ Mataeomera”.

The general build and size of these species is comparable to those of Eublemma, but the fasciation is irregularly transverse, without sharp angling subcostally of the forewing postmedial and neighbouring fasciae; the postmedial is somewhat M-shaped in the discal region. The discal marks are small, transverse, blackish bars. The hindwing pattern is generally similar to that of the forewing in composition, and the colour is generally shades of grey with the markings darker, sometimes blackish. Hampson (1910) noted the male antennae to be ciliate; the labial palps are porrect, the second segment triangular, deepening distally, with the third segment very short.

The male abdomen has the eighth segment with a weakly developed framed corematous condition. The genitalia are generally aventiine in character, but distinguished by a relatively distal transverse process that may be divided or otherwise complex. There is also usually a subapically based costal spine that may be quite large or almost vestigial. Of the four Bornean species, there are two exhibiting each extreme. The aedeagus apex may have several obtuse spines, and there may be a small cornutus within the vesica.

The female genitalia were illustrated for M. esbiahni Sohn & Ronkay by Sohn & Ronkay (2001); females are rare in collections, The ostium is set in a complex pouch associated with the eighth segment; this segment lacks definite apodemes. The base of the corpus bursae is coiled, and the main body is pyriform, with some basal scobination. The females of obesicosta sp. n. (see below) and another related species from Peninsular Malaysia (slide 21405) have genitalia resembling those of esbiahni in the rather complex ostium and sterigma with longitudinal thickening, the reduced apodemes of the eighth segment and the structure of the ductus and corpus bursae.

Sugi (1987) indicated that the larva of obliquisigna was similarly shaped to the ‘curiously flattened’ one of Aventiola  pusilla Butler, found on the bark of trees and presumed to be lichen-feeding, noted also by Sohn & Ronkay (2001).

The group ranges from Korea to the N.E. Himalaya, and south to Sundaland. Named species with type localities are esbiahni Sohn & Ronkay (Korea), biangulata Wileman (Taiwan), semialba Hampson (Sikkim), obliquisigna Hampson (N.W. India) and umbrifera Hampson (Bhutan). There are several further species in Burma and Peninsular Malaysia, and the four taxa from Borneo are described following renalis below. Unfortunately, six slides of mainland Asian taxa, including topotypical specimens of the taxa just listed, have been mislaid during 2008 and have not been relocated at the time of going to press. However, the slides of the Bornean taxa were compared with them before disappearance, and (M.R. Honey, pers. comm.) none was conspecific.