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Phyllodes Boisduval
Type
species: conspicillator Cramer, Moluccas, New Guinea, Sulawesi.
Synonym:
Xenodryas
Gistl
(unnecessary replacement name for Phyllodes).
This
genus contains the largest catocalines in the Indo-Australian tropics,
particularly in terms of wing span. The forewings have a distinctive shape and
facies that combine to provide an effective leaf mimicry. They are elongate,
narrow, with the costal margin increasing in curvature to the apex, and the
dorsal and distal margins together have a strong and more even curvature. The
apex is falcate. The greenish, rufous and brown wings are crossed by a series of
diffuse, ripple-like fasciae that are transverse to the reniform and, distal to
it, angled about a longitudinal line running from the apex to just posterior to
the reniform that represents the midrib of the leaf. The reniform itself is
transversely elongated, irregular, consisting of a series of pale then dark
lines to generate a blotch of disease or other type of blemish on the ‘leaf’. The hindwings tend to be darker brown with a band or patch of
flash coloration, yellow or deep pink with white.
The male
abdomen has an eighth segment that is typical of the ‘framed corematous’
type, the coremata being well developed within the type species, a massive
central one flanked basally by a pair of smaller ones, partially arising from
it; these subsidiary coremata are not present in species with yellow flash
coloration on the hindwings. Lödl (2000) described and illustrated these
coremata detail. The uncus is simple, apically acute, and there is a slight
scaphium. The juxta is broad, plate-like in some species but approximates to an
inverted ‘V’ in staudingeri Semper. The valves are narrow basally, broadening
distally, roughly triangular, though with a small spur on the more ventral of
the distal angles. There is a longitudinal lacuna dorsal to the sacculus
extending to two thirds; there is a digitate process arising from the dorsal
margin of this lacuna. The aedeagus vesica is moderately convolute, some
diverticula with scobination, and usually with small, spiny rasp-like
sclerotisations.
The
female genitalia of the type species have the ostium between the eighth segment
and a cleft in the posterior margin of the seventh sternite, which is otherwise
well developed. The ductus is sclerotised over most of its length, tapering
slightly. There is a short and much narrower membraneous section that joins the
rather elongate, corpus bursae slightly subbasally and asymmetrically. The
corpus bursae is strongly but irregularly corrugate, scobinate throughout. There
is a prominent, pyriform appendix bursae arising at one third that gives rise
distally to the ductus seminalis.
Bell
(MS) described the biology of the Indian P. consobrina Westwood.
The first instar is ivory white, the second black with first indications of the
pattern that develops in the third instar: a white dotted mantle over the dorsum
of A5 to A8, bounded by white lines from the anal proleg to the dorsum of A5;
the ocellus on A2 is ill-defined, orange. The final instar is stout, resembling
those of Erebus in shape, but always sitting stretched out, slightly
humped at A1 and A2. The main colour is a dark, smoky, rufous brown dorsally,
sometimes suffused more golden in the spiracular region of the thorax and from
A3 to A6. There is a lateral ocellus on T3, large, velvety black, shaded bluish
where in contact with dorsolateral subspiracular bands, and surrounded by white
spots. The dorsolateral ocellus on A2 is large but poorly defined in a golden
tint enclosing a few white dots. The dark dorsum has a paler dorsal band of
diamond-shaped patches, one small and one large behind it on each segment. There
are oblique whitish stripes laterally, sloping backwards, on each segment from
A3 to A6.
The
larva does not show the reared-up defensive posture of Eudocima
species
(but see below for a comment on a related Australian species) but always sits
stretched out, though slightly humped at A1 and A2. The pupa is without bloom,
its surface shining, pupation occurring in a cell made of leaves of the host
plant, such as in species of Eudocima.
Bell
recorded the larva on Anamirta and Cocculus (Menispermaceae).
Common
(1990) noted that the Australasian P. imperialis Druce
has a cryptic larva that, when threatened, exposes a dorsal pair of blue-black
eye-spots associated with white tooth-like markings on the raised front half of
its body. The host plant is also in the Menispermaceae, Pycnarrhena.
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