Ataboruza stragulata Pagenstecher comb. n.

Zagira stragulata Pagenstecher, 1900, Zoologica Stuttg., 12: 85.

Cerynea morma Swinhoe, 1901, Ann. Mag. nat. Hist. (7) 7: 472.

Zagira pratti Bethune-Baker, 1906, Novit. zool., 13: 213.

Diagnosis

See divisa. The doubled pale forewing postmedial is diagnostic.

Taxonomic note

Wang (1995) placed morma as a synonym of stragulata.

Geographical range

Indo-Australian tropics to Taiwan, New Guinea, Australia and the Solomons.

Habitat preference

The type material of morma is from Sarawak without precise data. A further specimen was taken in a sample from logged forest at 70m near the Danum Valley Field Centre in Sabah (S.J. Willott, unpublished data). Chey (1994) recorded about twenty specimens from various softwood plantations near Brumas in the lowlands of Sabah.

Biology

A species that may be related to stragulata but with the exterior component of the forewing postmedial dark rather than as pale as the interior one has been reared in the Philippines (H.C. Evans & R.H. Reeder, pers. comm.), though this record was attributed to O. semilux Walker in Robinson et al. (2001). Its male genitalia (slide 21296) have the costal spine of the valve shorter than in stragulata, based opposite the saccular process, with the longer cucullus extending well beyond it. It had a cryptic larva that fed on head smut ( Sporisorium ophiuri) of Rottboellia cochinchinensis (Gramineae). The larva was photographed in colour. It is a generally greyish semi-looper with fully developed prolegs only on A5 and A6. The body is covered by a light fur of short secondary setae to which particles of detritus can adhere. There is a diffuse, blackish dorsal line, and the flanks are also a slightly darker grey. There is a slight peak dorsally on A8.

Genitalia: