|
Arctornis perfecta Walker
comb. n.
Redoa perfecta Walker, 1862, J. Linn. Soc. (Zool.),
6:128.
Kanchia gigantea Aurivillius, 1894, Ent. Tidskr.
15 (2): 175.
Diagnosis. This is the largest satiny white species and lacks a discal spot. The
forewings are rather acute apically. The other large species are more creamy in
colour, more translucent, and have a black discal dot. The frons has a brown bar
between the antennal bases, a pair of brown patches immediately below this, and
the tips of the palps are brown, slightly more extensive ventrally. The tibiae
of all legs have a central brown band. The probable female is much larger,
more translucent. The male genitalia have the uncus bilobed. The valves are
weakly bifid apically, with a small, setose triangular subcostal flap at about
two-thirds. They are deep, the harpe slender, sabre-like.
Taxonomic notes. This species and the Himalayan A. lactea Moore comb. n. (also
Peninsular Malaysia, and noted for Sumatra by Schintlmeister (1994)) are very
similar in the facies of both sexes, including the ornamentation of the head and
legs. In both species the forewing venation has R2 running closely parallel to
Rs, anastomosing with it briefly between the branching point of R5 and the
splitting of R3 and R4. The association of the sexes in both taxa also requires
confirmation from rearing: females appear to be much commoner in lactea and
males in perfecta.
Type material of lactea consists of a male syntype in Museum für
Naturkunde, Humboldt Universität, Berlin, and a female syntype in BMNH. Females
(Figs 378, 386) have rather shallow, triangular ovipositor lobes, a
horseshoe-shaped lamella antevaginalis and a boomerang-shaped lamella
postvaginalis. A single Bornean female that is probably perfecta resembles
that of lactea and the holotype of gigantea Aurivillius (Java;
Javan males have genitalia as in perfecta (slides 697, 698)) externally.
The abdomen of the gigantea holotype was partly disintegrated, but the
genitalia were sufficiently complete to indicate a similarity to the Bornean
female and, less so, to that of lactea. The lamella antevaginalis is
smaller, less distinctly horseshoe-shaped, and the boomerang-shaped sclerite is
less well developed. Similar females occur in New Guinea and Australia, but the
genitalia in the former locality resemble those of lactea. Males have not
been located.
 |
 |
The male genitalia of lactea are very different from those of perfecta:
the uncus is tongue-like; the valve is trapezoid, with a small tongue-like
projection at the dorsal angle, and strong extension to the ventral angle, with
the distal margin between the angles concave, more strongly so towards the
anterior; the harpe is more robust, partially enclosed by a large flap from the
valve costa; the aedeagus is half the length of that of perfecta, without
a pair of lateral processes.
Geographical range. Sundaland, Sulawesi (slide 2211).
Habitat preference. Most records are from lowland forest, including heath
forest and mangrove, but a few specimens have been taken in montane forests as
high as 1600m (Bukit Pagon and Bukit Retak in Brunei).
<<Back
>>Forward <<Return to Contents page
|
