Nishada Moore, 1878: 23

Singh, Navneet, Ahmad, Jalil & Raha, Angshuman, 2022, Contribution to the Erebidae fauna of the Great Nicobar Island, India with description of two new species (Lepidoptera: Noctuoidea), Zootaxa 5165 (1), pp. 79-94 : 82

Genus Nishada Moore, 1878: 23

Type species: Nishada flabrifera Moore, 1878 (Type locality: Calcutta [Kolkata, India])

= Petalopleura Meyrick, 1889: 458 .

Taxonomic note: The genus Nishada Moore, 1878 was erected as monotypic for its type species, N. flabrifera under the subfamily Lithosiinae (Lithosiidae) (currently recognised as tribe Lithosiini ) from Calcutta [Kolkata], India. Presently, the genus represents 20 species (including the nominotypical subspecies) and one subspecies distributed mainly in the Indo-Australian tropics and rarely in the higher latitudes, such as in Nepal and North-eastern Himalaya of the Palaearctic zone ( Holloway 2001, Joshi et al. 2016). Of which, four species are known from India, N. chilomorpha adunca Holloway, 2001 , N. flabrifera Moore, 1878 , N. pseudochilomorpha Joshi & N. Singh in Joshi et al., 2016 and N. rotundipennis Walker, 1862 ( Singh et al. 2021e). Majority of the Nishada have unmarked whitish-yellow or beige wings with characteristically elongated forewings and short hindwings. In males, the shortness of the hindwing is more evident where the androconial bearing subcostal area is extended and sometimes folded. The male genitalia generally bear a large spine-like process originating subbasally from the valva costa.