|
Dudusa Walker
Dudusa
vethi Snellen
stat. rev.
Dudusa vethi Snellen, 1892, Midd. Sumatra Lep. 4: 40.
Dudusa borneensis Roepke, 1943, Tijdschr. ent. 36: 79.
Dudusa nobilis vethi Snellen; Roepke, 1953, Ent. Berichten 14:
364; Kiriakoff 1968: 22.
Dudusa nobilis Walker; sensu Barlow
1982: 63.
Diagnosis. The species can be distinguished from its congener, synopla Swinhoe,
by the pale bars dorsally at the distal margin of each abdominal segment, as
distinct from a complete dorsal line longitudinally. D. vethi has a pale
fawn ground colour to the forewing whereas D. synopla has this golden
yellow. The line of the postmedial, where it is pale in the two spaces
immediately posterior to the prominent transverse dark bar, is roughly at right
angles to the dorsum in vethi but significantly oblique in synopla. Differences
in the male genitalia are described in the taxonomic notes.
Taxonomic notes. Dudusa specimens throughout the Oriental Region attributed
to nobilis Walker (e.g. by Kiriakoff 1968) fall into two distinct
categories, separable on the characters of ground colour and orientation of the
forewing postmedial, as mentioned in the diagnosis above, and also on characters
of the male genitalia.
The first group, for which the oldest available name
is synopla Swinhoe, includes javana Roepke in Java, celebensis Roepke
in Sulawesi, an undescribed taxon from Buru, and synopla itself which
extends from N.E. Himalaya and India through Burma to Borneo and Sumatra;
Taiwanese specimens in the BMNH, probably attributable to fumosa Matsumura
(? =horishana Matsumura; Sugi 1979), have male genitalia identical to
those of synopla. The male genitalia of members of the group have the
dorsal process to the aedeagus at one third from the base, and the valve
sacculus is unornamented or with a distally directed spine centrally.
The second group, for which the oldest name available is nobilis Walker
(China), has male genitalia with the dorsal process to the aedeagus central and
the valve sacculus with a prominent ampulla well distal to the centre of the
ventral margin. Only the female holotype of nobilis is available for
study at the BMNH, though a single Taiwanese male referable to ssp. baibarana
Matsumura could be taken as representative of the species. The only other
member of the group is vethi Snellen. It is distinguished from nobilis
by the male genitalia where the valve is elongate, triangular, without
apical ornamentation rather than deep, rounded, with a longitudinal fold
apically. In nobilis the crests to the uncal processes are much more
prominent.
Geographical range. Sundaland (Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, Java,
Borneo).
Habitat preference. The species is frequent in lowland dipterocarp forest
but has not been recorded above 300 m.
Biology. Kalshoven (1981) described the large larva as having long, hornlike
spines on the body; the back is yellow but the flanks are marked with
longitudinal dark striae. It feeds on rambutan (Nephelium, Sapindaceae).
<<Back
>>Forward <<Return
to Contents page
|
