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Erygia
spissa Guenée comb n.
Felinia
spissa Guenée, 1852, Hist. nat. Insectes, Spec. gén. Lépid.
7:
322.
Felinia
spissata Guenée, 1852, Hist. nat. Insectes, Spec. gén. Lépid.
7:
400.
Briarda
decens Walker,
[1858] 1857, List
Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 13: 1098.
Felinia
spissa Guenée; Holloway, 1976: 32.
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Erygia
spissa
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Diagnosis.
The forewing ground colour is pale fawn-grey, variegated by fasciation. The
postmedial is fine, irregular, broken, black, looped and stepped round the
reniform; the antemedial is angled, the black extending basad, grading away.
There is also a block of black on the costa between a paler outer component of
the postmedial and the paler zigzag submarginal. The hindwing is basally fawn,
grading brownish grey over the distal half. See also apicalis above.
Geographical
range. Indian Subregion to New Guinea.
Habitat
preference. Though uncommon, spissa has
been recorded from the lowlands to 1930m. Lowland habitats include heath and
coastal forests.
Biology.
The larva was described and illustrated by Chey (1996). It is pale brown, with
irregular darker brown longitudinal stripes and variegation that includes a
blacker transverse mark, almost a band, on A2. The setae are on small tubercles.
Bell
noted a larva that he originally mistook for that of Erygia reflectifascia Hampson,
as it was almost identical. The prolegs on A3 and A4 are reduced. The
description matches the larva illustrated by Chey, but includes reference to a
fringe of filaments, some branched, like that in Erygia apicalis.
This is not evident in the photograph in Chey, nor is it mentioned in the text.
The pupa
lacks a bloom.
The
host-plant recorded was Paraserianthes falcataria (Leguminosae),
and the species can be a pest in plantations of this exotic tree. Robinson et
al.
(2001) also noted Acacia and Xylia in
the same family, the record of Xylia being from the note by Bell.
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