|
Acropteris
ciniferaria Walker
Micronia ciniferaria Walker,
1866, List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 35: 1642
Micronia obliquaria Moore,
1877, Proc. zool. Soc. Lond., 1877: 622.
Acropteris ciniferaria Walker;
Holloway, 1976: 86.
Diagnosis. The white ground colour is more cream-tinged than in congeners, the
markings pale brown rather than grey, speckly, rather than linear, such that the
fasciae, though oblique on the forewing, are more diffuse and obscure. The
hindwing angle is marked with a black fleck, with other, smaller flecks on
either side.
Geographical range. Oriental tropics to Sulawesi and Lesser Sundas.
Habitat preference. Most old material is from lowland localities (e.g.
Pulo Laut), but one specimen was taken at 1050m at Kundasan near G. Kinabalu.
Biology. Bell (MS) described the larva in S. India. It is somewhat fusiform in
shape, the roundish head narrower than T1. The skin is polished, glossy, the
setae on tubercles. Each segment has a transverse, linear depression. The colour
is a light, translucent green with a dark dorsal line. The pupa is claviform
with only a pair of hooked shafts on the cremaster.
The larvae live on the underside of leaves or, when larger, between two
leaves. Pupation is on the upper surfaces of a leaf with the edges drawn
slightly together, the leaf surface is webbed with shining silk. The pupa lies
along the midrib, attached by the cremaster and a 'body-band more or less'.
The host-plant was given as Marsdenia (Asclepiadaceae), but
corrected to Dregia in the same family by Lees & Smith (1991).
<<Back
>>Forward <<Return
to Contents page
|
