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Grammodes
geometrica Fabricius
Noctua
geometrica Fabricius, 1775, Syst. Ent. p.
599.
Phalaena
ammonia Cramer, [1779] 1782, Uitlandsche Kapellen,
3: 98.
Grammodes
bifulvata Warren,
1913, Gross-Schmett.
Erde, 3: 331.
Grammodes
orientalis Warren,
1913, Gross-Schmett.
Erde, 3: 331.
Grammodes
geometrica Fabricius; Holloway, 1976: 31; Kobes, 1985: 46.
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Grammodes
geometrica 
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Diagnosis.
The forewing is distinctly marked by a white band flanked by two broader black
ones, the more distal also edged narrowly with white. None of these bands
reaches the costa, which is broadly grey-brown.
Geographical
range. Mediterranean
east to Oriental and Australasian tropics.
Habitat
preference. Singletons have been recorded in dry heath forest at 15m at
Telisai and dipterocarp forest at 30-60m near Labi in Brunei, and in an area of
cultivation near forest at Bundu Tuhan (1200m) on the slopes of G. Kinabalu.
Records by Chey 1994 of G. samosira Kobes
(= occulta
Berio)
from plantation forest in Sabah have proved on dissection of males to be
referable to geometrica.
However, occulta
and
geometrica
occur
together in both Sumatra and Australia (E.D. Edwards in Nielsen et al. (1996); pers.
comm.),
and so the former may well be found in Borneo in future.
Biology.
The larva has been illustrated by Ohbayashi & Takeuchi (1996), who reared it
on Okinawa I. It is an elongate semi-looper with A3 absent and A4 reduced. There
are no tubercles on A8, the body curving down gently and smoothly to the anal
prolegs. The head is pale ochreous with black spots. The body has longitudinal
red lines dorsally and dorsolaterally, the latter with small, pale-ringed black
circles on each of A1-A4. The rest of the body down to the spiracles amongst the
red lines consists of dense blue-black stippling on a pale whitish ground, the
stippling tending to form longitudinal lines. Below the spiracles the body is
ventrolaterally white with three rather irregular pinkish-red longitudinal
lines. The illustrations do not show the ventral surface clearly.
The wild
host recorded by Ohbayashi & Takeuchi was Phyllanthus
(Euphorbiaceae),
but in captivity it will accept Sapium from
the same family (Koshino, 1999). Robinson et al. (2001) recorded a much wider
Oriental host range: Cistus (Cistaceae); Diospyros (Ebenaceae);
Ricinus
(Euphorbiaceae);
Oryza,
‘grasses’ (Gramineae); Polygonum (Polygonaceae); Ziziphus (Rhamnaceae);
Tamarix
(Tamaricaceae).
Bänziger
(1982) recorded the adult as piercing fruit in Thailand.
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