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Macaldenia
palumba Guenée
Hulodes
palumba Guenée, 1852, Hist. Nat. Insectes, Spec. gén. Lépid.
7:
211.
Remigia
colligens Walker,
1865, List
Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 33: 1019.
Parallelia
palumba Guenée; Holloway, 1976: 30; Kobes, 1985: 46.
Macaldenia
palumba Guenée; Kobes, 1992: 44.
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Macaldenia
palumba 
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Diagnosis.
This is a rather uniform ashy grey species with rather obscure darker markings;
these are strongest on the hindwing at the tornus and postmedially, where a
conspicuous and diagnostic row of small white lunules occurs.
Taxonomic
note. There is possibly a second species overlapping with palumba
in
New Guinea and occurring also in St. Matthias I. and the Solomons that has more
contrasty wings, mainly due to a darkening of the oblique forewing submarginal
and through the white lunules on the hindwing. Differences in male genitalia are
minor and variable, but the uncus tends to be less domed, the valves are
narrower with a more slender and falcate costal process. The major diverticulum
of the aedeagus vesica tends to be narrower and the spines on it somewhat
smaller. A larger sample needs to be dissected to elucidate this further and
eliminate the possibility that this is merely a clinal situation with much
variability in New Guinea.
Geographical
range. Oriental Region to Japan (Okinawa I.) and Sundaland; possibly
extending east to New Guinea. (see above) and occurring on Guam in Micronesia.
Habitat
preference. The species is infrequent but recorded from a variety of
habitats from the lowlands to 1930m.
Biology.
The larva was illustrated and described by Moore (1884-1887) and Semper
(1896-1902), and described by Bell (MS). The prolegs on A3 are very small, those
of A4 slightly reduced, and those on A5 and A6 are normal. There is a pair of
prominent conical tubercles on A8. The head is marbled yellow and brown,
speckled with black. The body is olive-green, yellowish from A3 to A6, mottled
with brown and grey and spotted with black, with large subdorsal black spots on
each side of A1. The illustration by Moore shows the larva darker laterally and
whitish ventrally, and Moore referred to pinkish grey spots in a greyish
sublateral line. Semper illustrated a generally grey larva.
The pupa
has a bluish white powdery bloom, and pupation occurs on a leaf that has had an
edge turned over to form a more or less cylindrical cell.
The host
plants recorded by Bell are Atalantia and Paramignya in
the Rutaceae. Records for Citrus in the same family (Robinson et
al.,
2001) may be genuine larval records or may refer to adult fruit-piercing. Moore
(1884-1887) and Semper (1896-1902) gave Citrus as a host, the former quoting Thwaites. A
specimen from Guam submitted in 2004 to the Natural History Museum Insect
Identification Service had been reared on foliage of Citrofortunella
(Rutaceae;
Citrus
x
Fortunella).
The
adult is a fruit piercer in Thailand (Bänziger, 1982; Kuroko & Lewvanich,
1993).
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