Photoscotosia Warren

Type species: miniosata Walker, Himalaya.

Synonyms:

• Lasiogma Meyrick (unnecessary replacement name for Trichopleura Staudinger)
• Trichopleura Staudinger (type species palaearctica Staudinger, Central Asia) praeocc.

This genus has recently been recorded from Borneo as related below. It consists of large to very large species with forewings similar to those of Ecliptopera Warren, but lacking the triangular marginal zone to the forewing that typifies the latter. Also, there is in most species a brush of hairs on the underside in males extending forward over the cell from  a basal line of origin posterior to the anterior cubital vein of the cell up to vein CuA2. The male genitalia have a strong expansion to the valve costa, with a slender hair-pencil extending over it from a position interior to it. The base of the costa has a small lobe directed dorsally or towards the posterior of the genitalia. The aedeagus vesica has a row of fine spines. The female genitalia have a narrow longitudinal scobinate band within the corpus bursae similar to that in Ecliptopera. The genus Amnesicoma Warren bears a close relationship to Photoscotosia, sharing most of the distinctive features of the male genitalia; however, the male forewing lacks the brush of hairs as seen in Photoscotosia.

The genus is diverse in western China, the Himalaya and the mountains of Central Asia, but extends weakly into the mountains of Sundaland and the Philippines. Amnesicoma contains far fewer species and is restricted in distribution to the centre of diversity of Photoscotosia. Both genera are illustrated extensively by Xue & Zhu (1999).

The re‐survey of the 1965 Kinabalu transect (Holloway, 1970, 1976) by I‐Ching Chen and colleagues (Chen et al., 2009, 2011) resulted in the capture of a single male and female of a Photoscotosia species (Plate 8) at the Paka Cave (3085m) and Panar Laban (3315m) sites. In facies it bears some resemblance to P. insularis Bastelberger from Taiwan, and to P. miniosata, P. dejuta Prout (W. China) and the taxon cupha Prout from Luzon. It also resembles a female from G. Leuser in N. Sumatra which shows genetic distinctiveness (DNA barcoding) from Himalayan material. However, the Bornean and Sumatran populations have also proved to be genetically distinct (M.D. Sommerer, pers. comm.). The genus is highly diverse in the mountains of western China and the Himalayan region (Scoble, 1999; Xue & Zhu, 1999). In Sundaland, apart from the taxa just mentioned, P. multiplicata Warren flies in the mountains of Java. The Bornean species is under study by M.D. Sommerer (pers. comm.) in conjunction with other Sundanian taxa; DNA barcoding has not indicated any clear affinities amongst them.