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SUBFAMILY
BAGISARINAE |
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Ramadasa Moore Type species: pavo Walker, Sri Lanka. The species typically (but see the final paragraph) have the striking forewing facies type illustrated for the three Bornean species and described below. The clypeofrons is scaled ventrally but often has a bald area centrally. The labial palps are slender, closely appressed to the head, not extending beyond it. The second segment is long but the third is only about a quarter or less of that length. The male antennae are filiform, smooth. The male forewing is modified by a longitudinal pouch or fold in the cell, and the veins arising distally from it are slightly sinuous, those from M1 to CuA2 running more or less parallel to the margin. In the female they are straighter, more separated and generally gently divergent. In the male abdomen, the eighth segment is strikingly modified from the framed corematous condition, the tergite shaped like a table‑tennis bat, the blade posterior and with a complex, pinched-up structure in the handle, which has slight apodemes. This is similar to the modifications seen in some other bagisarines. The sternite is shorter, broader, posteriorly divided, with a central, slightly corematous lacuna as in Imosca; there may be a slight frame along the anterior and lateral margins, flanked distally by a pair of lobes bearing hair‑scales. The genitalia are rather elongate, the valves like those of some chloephorine Nolidae, narrow, with prominent hair‑pencils at the base of the sacculus along its ventral margin and arising from its interior. The valves are broadly fused to each other basally, a bagisarine feature noted by Fibiger & Lafontaine (2005), though not all genera show this clearly. The vinculum and saccus are weak. The uncus and tegumen are usually highly modified, the latter sometimes expanded into extensive lobes. The juxta is ovate (though sometimes bilobed at its dorsal margin) with a lacuna near its ventral end. The aedeagus vesica is much broader than long and bears a single large but short cornutus. It can have a significant diverticulum directed away from the primary tube. The female genitalia have the broad ostium set at the anterior of the ventral gap in the ring of the eighth segment. The ductus narrows in a sclerotised funnel from the ostium. Beyond this it extends for a similar distance, narrow, unsclerotised, finely scobinate to its junction with the corpus bursae. The corpus bursae is irregular in shape, about four times as long as broad, scobinate and corrugate throughout; in its basal quarter, the corrugations are broader, generally transverse, curved rather than longitudinal. Kobes (1997) treated this genus as a member of the Chloephorinae, but it lacks the diagnostic features of the Nolidae and was therefore excluded by Holloway (2003). The scaling of the clypeofrons and general features of the male abdomen also raise doubts about placement of this genus in the Catocalinae, and it is possible that it may rest better in the Bagisarinae with genera such as Chasmina Walker (where Walker originally placed the type species) and Calymniops Hampson as suggested by Holloway (2005), and because it shows some diagnostic bagisarine features as noted above. A further indication of association with the Bagisarinae may be found in the species “Oglasa” separata Walker that was associated by Gardner (1948a) on grounds of larval characteristics with other Bagisarinae in his B1 group as discussed on p. 25. Whilst the moth has facies of the Brevipecten or Androlymnia type, lacking the highly modified facies and male forewing venation of typical Ramadasa, the male abdomen has a number of the unusual features that are shown by that genus such as the general structures of the eighth segment and, in particular, the structure of the valves, their area of fusion ventral to the juxta, and the particular nature of the hair‑pencils: a deciduous row along the very base of the valve and a narrow one arising from the interior, basad in a somewhat expanded, mushroom‑like structure. It is possible, therefore, that separata and the closely related (or possibly conspecific) “Oglasa” contigua Wileman & West (Philippines: Luzon), with a plesiomorphic forewing pattern bear a sister‑relationship to the typical Ramadasa species with a highly modified pattern. They are therefore transferred to Ramadasa, comb. n. The early stages of separata are described in some detail here from the observations of Bell (MS), who reared the species from the egg in S. India. The mature larva was also described briefly by Gardner (1948a), as noted earlier. The egg is hemispherical, slightly obtusely ribbed longitudinally, very light yellow, blotched reddish orange all over. The egg is invested with long, erect, rather conical hairs around the base that give way to shorter, more translucent hairs towards the micropyle, which is in a naked circle. The hatchlings are light honey‑yellow, with only two pairs of abdominal prolegs, a condition that persists to maturity. The third instar becomes purplish dorsally, and acquires a broad white lateral line. The setae arise from minute black chalazae. The fourth instar is olive green or green, with A8 yellow and A10 white. The ventrum is still yellow, and there is a thin white spiracular line as well as the broad lateral one. The head is a light orange with a few black spots. The fifth instar is similar. The mature larva retains the orange head with black markings. The body appears glassy, enamel‑white with a bluish‑green tinge. The spiracular yellow line has become more definite. The lateral white band is present but not so conspicuous on the white ground. The eggs are laid singly or in close pairs sunk into the dense hair coating of the upper surface of very young leaves, concealment brought about by the colour and hairs of the egg. The larvae live and feed beneath the leaves, leaving the top cuticle. When active, they have a strongly looping motion. Pupation is underground, about 10cm, in a soft, smooth‑walled silk cocoon. The host plant was Sterculia (Sterculiaceae). |
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