Apamea sodalis tropica Butler ssp.n.

Xylophasia sodalis Butler, 1878, Ann. Mag. nat Hist. (5), 1: 83.

Apamea obliquiorbis Moore, 1882, Descr. new Indian lepid. Insects Colln.. Atkinson p.109.

Apamea sodalis Butler, Holloway, 1976 : 10.

♂♀ 18-20mm. This race has forewings a much darker brown, less striate and contrasty than typical Himalayan sodalis but shares the feature of a swollen base to the uncus that bears a fan of fine hairs. The valve lacks the prominent lobe that extends ventrally from the cucullus neck to overlap the costal process at the angle; the harpe is less sinuous; the sacculus has the ventral margin less angular, the cornuti in the aedeagus vesica are smaller with the bases less extensively sclerotised.

The more extensive series from Luzon (cf. two from Borneo) is used to typify this taxon.

Holotype ♂

Haights Place, Panai, subprov. Benguet, LUZON, 7000ft, 1 December 1912 (A.E. Wileman) BM noctuid slide 14012. Paratypes. 25 examples as holotype, various dates, slides 12902(♂), 12903(♀)

Paratype

25 examples as holotype, various dates, slides 12902(♂), 12903(♀)

Biology

The larva is a grass feeder. Miyata (1983) gave Phalaris, Avena, Agropyron and Microstegium as hosts for the typical race in Japan.

Taxonomic Note

The traditional concept of Apamea Ochsenheimer (e.g. as listed by Poole (1989)) was regarded by Zilli, Ronkay & Fibiger (2005) as not unambiguously resolved in a phylogenetic sense. These authors divided European Apamea amongst Apamea sensu stricto and Abromias Billberg on the basis of larval morphology and the structure of the female genitalia, but the opipositor lobes are not as narrow and acute as in most Apamea, being more as in Abromias.

Genitalia: