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Yepcalphis
dilectissima Walker
Ariola dilectissima Walker, 1858, List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln.
Br. Mus., 15: 1751.
Pachylepis limacodina Felder, 1874, Reise Ost. Freg. Novara, pl.
83.
Diagnosis.
The red and yellow forewings render this species unmistakeable.
Geographical
range. Sri Lanka (ssp. cingalesa Warren); Oriental tropics to
Philippines and Sulawesi; Sula Is. (ssp. insulicola Warren).
Habitat
preference. The species is frequent in a variety of lowland forest types and
has also been taken in disturbed situations.
Biology.
Bell (MS) reared dilectissima in India. The head is heart-shaped, smooth,
watery chestnut brown with black setae. The body is shining, rather
greasy-looking, broader centrally than at each end, with primary setae only, these
set on distinctive long tubercles. The colour is rosy brown, with the anal
segments and a spiracular band yellowish. Some of the hairs on the tubercles are
white.
Pupation is in a hard, blackish, semiovoid cocoon usually placed at the base of
a leaf stalk. It consists of chewed particles of bark held together with light
orange silk.
The larvae are found on the underside of the leaves of their host-plant, Vitex
(Verbenaceae).
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