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Rhesala
imparata Walker
Rhesala
imparata Walker,
1858, List
Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 15: 1777.
Homoptera
diminutiva Walker,
1865, List
Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 33: 890.
[Egnasia
erebina Butler
1879, Ann.
Mag. nat. Hist. (5), 4: 450, see below].
[Heterogramma
nigricans Snellen, 1880, Tijdschr. Ent.,
23: 136, see below].
[Hingula
albolunata Moore,
1882, Descr.
new Indian lepid. Insects Colln W.S. Atkinson: 181, see below].
[Hingula
cervina Moore,
1882, Descr.
new Indian lepid. Insects Colln W.S. Atkinson: 181, see below].
[Raparna
costiplaga Holland,
1900, Novit.
zool.,
7: 592, see below].
[Metacausta
punctilinea Wileman, 1916, Entomologist,
49: 180, see below].
Diagnosis.
The species is much larger than nigricans Snellen but slightly smaller than the two new Bornean
species, both of which have a dark bar on the forewing costa, associated with
the postmedial. The identity of all four species is best confirmed from
genitalia characters. Males of imparata have
an elongate uncus with a slight crest of hairs. The valves are tongue-like, with
a distinct, but short saccular portion that protrudes as a slight tooth on the
ventral margin. The aedeagus vesica is somewhat reflexed, with exterior patches
of spines at one third and broadly over the apical third. The female has the
basal third of the corpus bursae sclerotised, convolute, with the distal
two-thirds spined.
Taxonomic
note. Poole (1989) and Nielsen et
al. (1996)
listed numerous synonyms for imparata. Dissection of the type material has revealed that: erebina
Butler
(slide 18663; Japan) is a synonym of moestalis Walker,
syn.
n.;
R.
albolunata Moore
(Nilgiri syntype female, BMNH; slide 18670) stat. rev. and
R.
cervina Moore
(Manipuri syntype female, BMNH; slide 18666) stat. rev. are
distinct from imparata and from each other and are best treated as good
species for the present; the holotype female of punctilinea
Wileman
(Taiwan) has lost its abdomen but resembles the albolunata syntype
in the course and intensity of its fasciation; the type material of diminutiva
Walker
(locality not known) is noted as lost in BMNH and is therefore best retained as
a synonym of imparata;
nigricans
Snellen
(Sulawesi, RMNH Leiden) is also distinct, as discussed next; the type material
of costiplaga
Holland
(Buru; Carnegie Mus, Pittsburgh) has not been examined, but will probably prove
to apply to related but distinct species east of Sulawesi (e.g. New Guinea,
slide 18665; see also Holloway (1979)). The geographical range is based only on
dissected material.
Geographical
range. Sri Lanka
(holotype; slide 10150); N.E. Himalaya (Khasis; slide 18664), Singapore (slides
10147, 10151), Borneo (slides 10761, 18789).
Habitat
preference. Three specimens have been recorded in recent surveys: from 70m
in alluvial forest near G. Mulu; from lowland forest at 100m in the lower
Temburong valley; from the coast at Seria.
Biology.
Bell (MS) reared a larva in India that he attributed to imparata. The prolegs are long, except the pair on A3 is
absent, and the anal claspers are splayed out behind. The body is cylindrical,
slightly wider centrally. The head is a shining light orange, the setae long,
brown. The body is dull, wrinkled, a plain watery grass-green. Gardner (1941,
1947) described a similar larva except the head was stated to be dark brown with
a pale frons and adfrons. The larvae are active semi-loopers, but retiring,
living in untidy webbing amongst leaves, feeding on young foliage and shoots.
Pupation is in a close, ovoid cocoon of silk and particles of detritus on the
soil; the silk can be balled in places in the lining of the cocoon. The pupa
does not have a powdery bloom.
The host
plants listed by Robinson et al. (2001) are all Leguminosae: Acacia,
Albizia,
Delonix,
Tamarindus.
A definite (unpublished IIE) host record from Singapore for imparata
is
of Samanea
(Leguminosae).
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