Psychonoctua Grote, 1865

Psychonoctua Grote, 1865 View in CoL

Psychonoctua Grote, 1865: 249–251 View in CoL

Type species (by monotypy): Psychonoctua personalis Grote, 1865: 251

= Hamilcara Barnes et McDunnough, 1910: 465–466 View in CoL (synonymized by Naydenov et al. (2024))

Type species (by original designation): Hamilcara atra Barnes et McDunnough, 1910: 466

Description. Medium-sized moths with diverse wing patterns. Often with expressed antemedial line with darkened basal area and discal spot, sometimes connected with a line to costal margin of fore wing. Fore wing background dark-grey, light-grey or ocher, with wavy pattern which can be pronounced ( P. lineaeplena and P. kon ) or reduced ( P. albogrisea and P. klagesi ). Hind wings, as a rule, lighter than fore wings, wavy pattern less expressed. Fringe with alternating dark and light spots. Head and thorax covered with grey hairs. Some species with darker head and fore part of thorax. Sometimes, dorsal side of thorax with triangular pattern with distinct dark border and dark center. Antennae grey or light-brown, bipectinate from base to 1/2 along length or 2/3 of length, distal part filiform. In females, antennae filiform.

Male genitalia. Uncus triangular, narrow in middle, apically acute. Gnathos arms thin, ribbon-like, slightly narrowing from base to apex, not fused. Gnathos absent. Valves relatively narrow, without harpes and other processes, ventral edge sometimes not smooth. Juxta of medium size, with long wide bar-like processes of even thickness or narrowing to tip. Saccus semicircular, relatively wide, small. Phallus thick, short, vesica very big, with folding at base, in some species – with clearly expressed portions of scabination. Lateral side of aedeagus with big ribbon-like cornutus, its distal half not fused, apex blunt or acute.

Female genitalia known only for P. personalis jamaicensis , described in Yakovlev et al. (2016).

Diagnosis. Externally, the genus is difficult to distinguish from Carohamilia Dyar, 1940 , but differs in the genital apparatus: the wide and short phallus with well developed vesica and the semicircular, not elongated, saccus. From the genus Schreiteriana Fletcher et Nye, 1982 it differs in the longer filiform portion of the antenna in the males, the absence of the harpe on the ventral side of the valve and the free distal end of the ribbon-like cornutus in the phallus, as well as in the less sclerotized folded area in the aedeagus. In the genital structure, the genus is close to the generic group of the Old World Zeuzerinae : Aethalopteryx Schoorl, 1990 , Azygophleps Hampson, 1892 , Oreocossus Aurivillius, 1910 , and Skeletophyllon Schoorl, 1990 .

Distribution. North and South America (from USA to Argentina), including West Indies.

Composition. The genus includes thirteen species.