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Amraica Moore
Type species: fortissima Moore.
Sato (1981b) reviewed taxa of the Oriental tropical genus Amraica, placing
it as a subgenus of Buzura Walker. Inoue (1982, 1985) separated Amraica
as a distinct genus on characteristics of male antennae and genitalia. The
male antennae are unipectinate, arising from the bases of the segments (cf.
bipectinate, arising near the tips of the segments).
The apex of the tongue is bristly as in other Biston group
genera. The facies is characterised by rich brown or blackish patches at the
base of the forewing and over the costal half of the apex.
The male abdomen lacks a setal comb. The uncus apex is acute rather than
bifid. The juxta is long, narrow, apically separate, paddle-shaped. The valve
lacks a well-defined cucullus but bears a straight rod-like process on the
sacculus, lying along the ventral margin of the valve and bearing some coarse
setae at the tip. The right hand process is markedly longer than the left in A.
ponderata Felder (Vietnam) and A. praeparva Prout (Bali, Sulawesi),
slightly so in recursaria but of even length in most other species. Sato
(in press) treated these genitalic types as variants B, A and C respectively of recursaria,
having dissected numerous specimens from the Oriental tropics. The aedeagus
vesica is scobinate, with a small, more coarsely spined patch of sclerotisation.
The female has the ostium bursae sclerotised, posteriorly excavate or
cleft. The ductus is short, narrow, the neck of the bursa long, twice as broad
as the ductus. The distal bulb is ovate, with the signum a prominent stellate
disc set centrally. The ovipositor lobes and both pairs of apodemes are
extremely elongate.
The larva of A. superans Butler was illustrated in Sugi (1987).
It is a robust twig-caterpillar, grey-brown, bark-like in texture, variable. One
morph illustrated has a row or irregular pale green patches dorsally that
increase in size to the rear. The head is dorsally obtusely bifid. Bell (MS)
described the larva of A. recursaria in very similar terms. Primary setae
are borne on small black tubercles. At rest the larva adopts a twig-like
posture, held at 45 degrees by its claspers.
The host-plants (Sato, 1981b) of A. superans are all from
Celastraceae in the genera Euonymus and Celastrus. Bell noted Gymnosporia
in the same family as the host-plant of A. recursaria: the larvae
feed on the young foliage.
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