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Gargetta Walker
Gargetta
hampsoni Schintlmeister
Gargetta hampsoni Schintlmeister, 1981, Atalanta 12: 286.
Diagnosis. The dark brown, slender forewings, with only slight longitudinal
striation, no discal marking, and grading paler distad, are distinctive; the
next species has discal and submarginal markings. The single Bornean male has
somewhat shorter, blunter processes to the bifid uncus than do typical Sumatran
males.
Taxonomic notes. The sister species of hampsoni is not the Himalayan nagaensis Hampson
as suggested by Schintlmeister; the latter is a larger species with deeper, more
squarely ended forewings that have a thin pale grey marginal line. The male
genitalia have the processes of the bifid uncus broad, tapering, and the lateral
lobes of the gnathus small, setose, as in tompoa Kiriakoff (Sulawesi,
?Luzon ( BMNH notodont slide 944)), divisa Gaede (N.E. Himalaya, Burma,
Peninsular Malaysia, ?Hong-Kong) and an undescribed species from Sulawesi (BM
notodont slide 946). G. costigera Walker (India) and nagaensis have
the gnathal processes long and the uncal processes slender, bulbous, apically
ornamented with a spine or spines. In costigera the harpe of the valve is
weakly bifid whereas it is simple in all the other species mentioned.
Geographical range. Sumatra, Borneo.
Habitat preference. Only one specimen is known from Borneo, a male from
Bidi, Sarawak, habitat unrecorded.
Biology. Nothing is known of the life history, but it would probably be
comparable with that of a species from Hong-Kong, tentatively identified as divisa
Gaede, reared, photographed and described (in litt.) by M. Bascombe.
It fits the general description for larvae of the Gargetta-Porsica group
by Gardner (1943): the head and body lack secondary setae above the level of the
prolegs; the anal prolegs are modified as slender, tapering, backward directed
stematopods, about one third of the body length, with protrusible lashes; the
anterior prolegs are reduced, particularly the first and especially in Gargetta.
The mature Hong-Kong larva was very slender, the stematopods red, finely
spined, with white protrusible lashes. At rest the larva grips a twig with the
last two prolegs, holding the anal portion erect and the anterior portion
uplifted at about 30º, with the head and thorax coiled round ventrally. The
lashes are protruded and waved when the larva is alarmed. The flanks of the head
and body are pale greenish yellow with fine paler lines, the subdorsal one edged
with dark brown and bordering a medium brown dorsal band. The prolegs and a
basal area surrounding them are reddish brown, diffusing away to the spiracles
which are surrounded on each segment by four to five pale pinacula (small, flat
tubercles bearing setae). On each of segments 2 and 8 of the abdomen there are a
pair of dorsolateral black blisters, centrally brown, just outside the
brown-bordered, fine yellow line referred to above.
Pupation was in a silken cocoon in earth and lasted two weeks. The
host-plant was a species of Briedelia (Euphorbiaceae), a host-plant also
recorded for G. costigera in India (see next species) and Java (Roepke
1943, Natuurh. Maandbl. Maastricht 32: 11) and for an unidentified Gargetta
in Peninsular Malaysia (A. Fox in litt.).
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