Acontia cretata

Acontia Ochsenheimer, 1816

Stylorache Hampson, 1910

Chelichares Hampson, 1910

Acontia is the only New World genus also represented in Old World as well. There are five described species in the genus in North America and six in Central and South America. The moths differ greatly in appearance and size; however most species tend to be some combination of white and gray, the white tending to be shiny. The forewing tends to be broad, often with a rounded apex.

Male genitalia. All of the species have a well-developed,
setose ampulla on the clasper and the clasper is usually weakly sclerotized except for a spinelike apex. In many species the costal part of the valve is more heavily sclerotized than the ventral part. The vesica in the New World species is elongated and without diverticula or spiny areas, except for a long, tapered, horn-like subapical diverticulum that is covered with minute denticles so that it appears to function as an enlarged cornutus; Acontia lucida,
the type-species from western Eurasia, has a spinulose subbasal diverticulum with a spiny apex, as well as the false cornutus.

Female genitalia. These consist of an elongate, sclerotized, ostium bursae, a tubular, membranous ductus bursae, and an oval membranous corpus bursae with the ductus seminalis at the anterior end. In Old World Acontia there are separate sclerotized plates in the ostium and ductus bursae and the ductus seminalis is at the end of a sclerotized appendix bursae, which is on the posterior left side of the corpus bursae.

Food plants. The food plants are recorded in the New World only for an undescribed species related to A. cretata that occurs in Texas and northeastern Mexico; it has been reared from Abutilon pedunculare. In the Old World, Acontia lucida feeds primarily, but not exclusively, on species of Malvaceae.

Plates

Plate 7 Acontia 1