Prolophota Hampson

Type species: trigonifera Hampson, Sri Lanka.

This genus consists of small moths with facies somewhat as in the Autoba Walker group of Eublemma Hübner (p. 161), but with a distinct central angle to the distal margins of all the wings. However, it, with the next genus, has been traditionally placed in the Hypeninae (e.g. Nye, 1975; Edwards in Nielsen et al., 1996). Holloway (2008: 214) found no support for this placement and indicated that it was better placed within the context of the traditional Acontiinae. The forewing has the medial fascia dark and angled sharply in the region of the darkly and finely tripunctate discal mark. The postmedial is separate, punctate to crenulate, and curves round where the medial is angled. There are dark brown triangles on the costa, the largest associated with, and just basal to, the generally pale submarginal, but there is a smaller one filling the acute angle formed by the medial with the costa. The hindwing pattern reflects that of the forewing.

The male abdomen has the apodemes of the basal sternite very short and well separate. In the eighth segment, the tergite is of the framed corematous type, but the sternite has the anterior and lateral margins in a strong W-shape, with the posterior margin very shallowly concave between the distal ends of the lateral margins; there is no central lacuna to the sternite. The genitalia have the uncus simple, shorter than the tegumen. The valves are small, narrow, slightly tapering, and only reaching to the centre of the tegumen; they lack processes. The saccus is broad, shallow.

The female genitalia of the type species have moderate apodemes on the eighth segment, but there are rugose pouches between these and the ostium bursae. The ductus bursae has a very short, moderately sclerotised antrum that gives way to a narrower unsclerotised portion that extends into the corpus bursae which expands into a pyriform bulb just anterior to the anterior margin of the seventh sternite. The ductus seminalis arises from near the distal end of the narrow section of the ductus and may represent the commencement of the corpus bursae. There is no signum. In the female attributed to mjobergi (see below), there are no pouches, and the corpus bursae is shaped more as in Hypertrocta posticalis Walker (see below).

The genus currently contains (Poole, 1989) the following two species, together with bisignata Hampson (Sri Lanka) and camptoloma Turner (Australia), but Edwards in Nielsen et al. (1996) placed camptoloma as a synonym of asthenopa Meyrick, described in Trigonistis Meyrick but probably misplaced in that genus. The facies and features of the male abdomen indicate that triangulatis Rothschild (New Guinea) should be transferred from Eublemma to Prolophota, comb. n. The status of material resembling trigonifera from New Guinea to the Solomons needs investigation as indicated below.