|
Eudocima Billberg
Type
species: salaminia Cramer, China.
Synonyms:
Acacalis
Agassiz
(unjustified emendation of Acacallis); Acacallis Hübner
(type species procus Cramer, Surinam); Adris Moore
(type species tyrannus Guenée, India); Argadesa Moore
(type species materna Linnaeus, India); Corycia Hübner
(type species cajeta Cramer, India, Java); Elygea
Billberg
(type species materna); Eumaenas Hampson
(unnecessary replacement name for Maenas);
Halastus
Butler
(type species intricatus Butler, Nigeria, Angola, Sierra Leone = divitiosa
Walker);
Khadira
Moore
(type species aurantia Moore, S. Andaman Is.); Leptophara
Billberg
(type species salaminia); Maenas Hübner
(type species salaminia) praeocc.;
Ophideres
Boisduval
(type species princeps Boisduval, New Guinea); Ophioderes
Agassiz
(unjustified emendation of Ophideres); Othreis Hübner
(type species pomona Cramer (see Nye, 1975) = phalonia
Linnaeus);
Othryis
Agassiz
(unjustified emendation of Othreis); Purbia Moore
(type species discrepans Walker, Singapore); Rhytia
Hübner
(type species cocalus Cramer, East Indies); Trissophaes
Hübner
(type species collusoria Cramer, Surinam); Vandana Moore
(type species dividens Walker).
This
genus is treated in the broad sense used by Poole (1989) and Zilli & Hogenes
(2002), but more traditional generic combinations, following on from the
treatment by Moore (1881), are indicated for the species below in square
brackets. Eudocima,
together with the Neotropical genera Ferenta Walker and Tetrisia
Walker,
the Oriental genus Gloriana Kirby and the Madagascan genus Huebnerius
Saalmüller,
form a complex of genera with large, mostly leaf-mimicking forewings and flash
coloration on the hindwings. The forewings have the tornus falcate and the
dorsum is also slightly sinuous, with a subbasal expansion, typical of the
tribe. This wing shape is exaggerated in Tetrisia,
normal in Eudocima,
but absent from the other three genera. Tetrisia also
shares with Eudocima
yellow
flash coloration on the hindwings; however, this is similar to that of much
smaller species in the large Neotropical genus Gonodonta
Hübner
that also shares the forewing shape. In Eudocima this
yellow is usually broken by a black border over much of the anterior-part of the
wing, with a large black lunule (sometimes absent or reduced to one or more
spots) set submarginally in the remaining spaces; indeed this offers an easily
recognisable definitive feature for the genus. The modification of the distal
part of the adult tongue as an adaptation for the fruit piercing habit was
discussed on p. 10.
The male
abdomen has an eighth segment of the framed corematous type. The genitalia have
a short, robust uncus with a slight scaphium. The tegumen is generally longer
than the vinculum. The valves are robust, variably irregular in shape, the
margins generally more heavily sclerotised than a central lacuna, but usually
without distinct processes from the costa or sacculus. The juxta is slightly
divided centrally, with a slight notch or weakness ventrally and a stronger
dorsal division where it is usually distinctly bifid, the arms of the
bifurcation sometimes very long, eg. in cocalus and
phalonia.
In some species, such as sikhimensis Butler,
the dorsal arms are strongly spined. The aedeagus is usually broad, often
scobinate apically. The diverticula of the vesica are generally short, broad,
and may bear a variety of cornuti or clusters of smaller spines, the latter
often extensive.
The
female genitalia have the ostium within a broad sterigma associated with the
eighth segment, though this structure is partially overlapped by the seventh
sternite; this is only slightly reduced. The apodemes of the eighth segment are
often small, and may be vestigial or lost. The ductus is usually broad,
sclerotised, often longitudinally corrugated. These corrugations may extend into
the corpus bursae, which tends to be elongate and rather irregular in shape.
The
larvae known across the genus are also very uniform in structure, ornamentation
and behaviour. The prolegs on A3 are strongly reduced, replaced by a ventral
tumidity. Those on A4 are slightly reduced. A8 rises to a hump at its
posterior-margin and falls steeply beyond that to the anal prolegs so that it
appears virtually right-angled in profile. There are conspicuous and large
subdorsal ocellate marks on A2 and A3. These provide a focus for a threat
posture that the larva adopts at rest, with the portion anterior to the fully
functional prolegs lifted upwards and curled round so that the ocelli are
prominently displayed; the posterior section with the hump and anal prolegs is
also held up away from the substrate.
There
are numerous illustrations and descriptions of the larvae of several species,
but these are not always entirely consistent, and so an attempt has been made
here to derive a consensus account, albeit sometimes at the sacrifice of detail.
Bell (MS) attempted a key for the Indian species he encountered that was based
primarily on the colour of the spiracles: black (aurantia,
homaena
Hübner);
reddish brown or orange (materna, phalonia);
olive green with brown (hypermnestra Stoll); some of these species and others
were illustrated by Moore (1881).
Host
plants are predominantly vines and lianes in the family Menispermaceae (Bänziger,
1982; Robinson et al., 2001), but there are records also from
the related family Lardizabalaceae (see also Bänziger, 1989b), and from
Amaranthaceae, Berberidaceae (Sugi, 1987) and Sterculiaceae. In the Pacific
islands the most serious fruit-piercing pest of the genus, E.
phalonia,
has adopted Erythrina
(Leguminosae)
as a host; this tree is frequently planted to shade other crops such as coffee,
and thus the damage to fruit crops by this species may be enhanced (Comstock,
1966; Cochereau, 1974; Maddison, 1982). Host plants in the Menispermaceae have
been recorded from the following genera: Anamirta,
Cissampelos,
Cocculus,
Cyclea,
Diploclisia,
Fibraurea,
Legnephora,
Menispermum,
Rhigiocarya, Sinomenium, Stephania, Tiliacora and
Tinospora
(Tanahara
& Tanahara, 2000; Robinson et al., 2001); and those in Lardizabalaceae
from: Akebia, Holboellia, Parvatia and
Stauntonia
(Robinson
et
al.;
Sugi, 1987; Bänziger, 1989b). Records from other plant families in the
literature (e.g. Zhang, 1994) are probably derived from observations of
fruit-piercing by adults that have been subsumed as larval host records
(Robinson et
al.,
2001), though Moore (1881) noted phalonia from Leschenaultia (Goodeniaceae).
Pupation
is always in a roomy cell made of living leaves woven together with silk and
slightly lined; the pupa is attached to this lining by the cremaster.
The
adults of all species probably pierce fruit as adults, and E.
phalonia is
a serious pest in this regard as discussed below. Eight species have been
recorded to do this in Thailand (Bänziger, 1982; Kuroko & Lewvanich, 1993),
and six of these (salaminia,
discrepans,
aurantia,
phalonia,
the cajeta
group
and homaena)
are known from Borneo.
<<Back
>>Forward <<Return to Content Page
|
