“Aegilia” sundascribens Holloway sp. n.

Stictoptera describens Walker; sensu Holloway, 1976: 19, and Barlow, 1982: 91.

♂♀ 20-22mm. The species can only be distinguished externally from describens by the sinuous, rather than straight, whitish submarginal line at the forewing tornus, and even this character is not fully reliable. In the male genitalia the socii are relatively massive, the apex of the dorsal arm of the valve large, the basal process on the valve costa relatively small, and the harpe is a single, rather central process. The aedeagus vesica has a single row of slender spines that increase in size distad almost exponentially. The female genitalia are as in Fig. 183, the elongate, sinuous ductus and the small oval plate at the ostium being amongst the diagnostic characters.

The variation of the forewing facies in this and other species in the describens complex (excluding indescribens) appears to be similar with about half a dozen forms recognised, mostly named by Strand as aberrations of *describens;*several of the Strand holotypes, however, belong to other species of the complex as indicated. It is proposed here that these aberration names be applied throughout the complex to facilitate cross-reference of variation from one species to another (nomina collectiva).

The typical form (above) has no well defined forewing markings apart from the submarginal at the tornus.

Ab. atrifascia Strand (papuascribens) has dark brown patches: one apical, two discal, one central-dorsal, and one basal.

Ab. atrimaculata Strand (sundascribens) has a longitudinal, central, dark brown streak (below).

Ab. semilunaris Strand (sundascribens) has a large, dark brown crescent- shaped zone over the basal half (above).

Ab. patagiata Strand (sundascribens) (= describentis Strand) has the basal half of the forewing rich brown in the male and cream colour in the female (illustrated by Barlow, 1982, Plate 29:18).

Ab. xylinata Walker stat. n. has the forewings darker with oblique pale zones on either side of the submarginal.

Ab. albosuffusa Strand (sundascribens) has the forewing basal to the submarginal suffused grey in the male and white in the female (below).

Holotype ♂

BRUNEI: 1618m, Bukit Retak, montane forest, 25.4.1981 (Lt. Col. M.G. Allen) BM noctuid slide 11234.

Paratypes

2 ♂♂, 1 ♀ BRUNEI, various localities (Allen), BM noctuid slides 11207, 11233, 11208.

Geographical range

Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, Borneo.

Habitat preference

On G. Kinabalu the species was infrequent at 1000m and frequent at around 2000m. Records of Aegilia on the Mulu survey ranged from the lowlands to upper montane forest on the transects of both G. Mulu and G. Api; probably most were sundascribens but the majority of the specimens were discarded after a field count. Material from Brunei was taken in both lowland and upper montane forest.

Taxonomic Note

Edwards in Nielsen et al. (1996: 374, note 645) followed the policy adopted for the work cited of treating all infraspecific Strand aberrational names later used by Gaede for forms (e.g. 1937, Gross‐Schmett. Erde 11: 366‐383) as thereby validated. The polymorphism exhibited by many species of Stictoptera Guenée and Aegilia Walker and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere in the subfamily, is very unusual in that many of the forms are represented across species concepts as discussed on pp. 236‐237 in Part 14, so it was proposed to use the Strand names as nomina collectiva to enable similar morphs to be tracked throughout the subfamily. The Strand names are descriptive to this end, e.g. albosuffusa and semilunaris. It is, however, clear from the Stictopterinae text of Gaede that he appreciated the polymorphism of Stictoptera Guenée and allies, and was aware that similar forms recurred from species to species. In his introduction to the subfamily he stated that “all these species are variable, so that mostly several forms are known of the more common species”. For some species he noted that many forms occurred in the same locality, a clear indication that he considered them to be conspecific. For most species he listed forms for each, numbering but not naming them or giving distributional data. When infrasubspecific Strand names were available, he applied them to the forms concerned within his numbered sequence. It is therefore proposed here that, where such forms are listed in a numbered sequence, they remain infrasubspecific despite being termed forms by Gaede; the rank is implicit, if not completely explicit (cf. note 651 in Nielsen et al. (1996)). This is the case for the nomenclature for describens.

Genitalia: