Beana
terminigera
Walker
Felinia? terminigera Walker, 1858, List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln
Br. Mus., 15: 1850.
Beana
polychroma Walker,
1862, J. Linn. Soc. (Zool.), 6: 183.
Beana
terminigera Walker; Holloway, 1976: 21.
Beana
terminigera
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Beana terminigera
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Diagnosis.
See the generic description. The large, rather
triangular zone of the basal part of the forewing and the circular apical patch,
both whitish in the female but more mutedly pale fawn in the male, are
diagnostic.
Geographical range.
Indian Subregion, Burma, Peninsular Malaysia,
Borneo, Philippines.
Habitat preference. The species is
infrequent. Recent collecting has yielded a male from an area of mangrove in the
Bay of Brunei, a male from a cultivated area near the coast at Tuaran in Sabah,
and four females from upper montane forest at 1790m on G. Mulu. Chey (1994)
recorded several specimens from secondary and plantation forests in the lowlands
of Sabah.
Biology.
The life history in India was described by Bell
(MS). The larva is a semi-looper, with the prolegs of A3 reduced to small
cylinders. The body is smooth, slightly tumid over A1 and A2, and also at A8
where there is a small subdorsal tubercle. Primary setae only are present,
inconspicuous. The colour is dark green in early instars, becoming more ‘smoky’
in tint in the second instar. More mature larvae are greenish, pinkish brown
with indistinct longitudinal lines and bands that are darker dorsally and
subdorsally, and lighter in between. There is also grey and white marbling
dorsally, particularly over the abdominal segments, and there are dark diagonal
bands dorsally to subdorsally over A2-4. Laterally there are further indistinct
marbled bands.
The larvae live on the stems and petioles of twigs of the host plant, lying
extended, but looping about actively when disturbed, in extreme situations
falling to the ground and shamming death, the head curled round to the ventrum
of A1. Pupation is in a spindle-shaped cell of leaves lined with silk, the pupa
with a shallowly conical apex to the abdomen, lacking a cremaster.
The host plant recorded was Quisqualis (Combretaceae). Gardner (1947)
noted the species on Ventilago (Rhamnaceae).
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