Cuculliinae

Joshi, Rahul, Raha, Angshuman, Bandyopadhyay, Uttaran, Bhattacharyya, Kamalika & Singh, Navneet, 2025, A catalogue of Noctuidae Latreille, 1809 (Lepidoptera: Noctuoidea) from India, Zootaxa 5669 (1), pp. 1-225 : 6

7. Cuculliinae are easily recognized by their uniquely elongate wing-shape and by characters in the male and female genitalia. Adults of this group have an elongate proboscis (also expressed in the pupa), which allows the moths to feed while hovering over a flower, rather than having to land on it to feed. The apical seta on labial palpus is short (about as long as the second segment); the prothoracic collar is enlarged (projecting anteriorly like a cape or process when the moth is at rest to give the moth a cryptic stick-like appearance). In the male genitalia the vesica bears two or three cornuti at the apices of subbasal diverticuli but is otherwise unarmed. In some genera, the ductus ejaculatorius appears as a direct extension of the main tube of the vesica. In female genitalia, the corpus bursae is reduced, its function apparently served by the appendix bursae ( Fibiger & Lafontaine 2005; Ronkay & Ronkay 2009; Ronkay et al. 2011; Kononenko & Pinratana 2013).