Barsine porphyrea Snellen stat. rev.comb. n.

Hypocrita porphyrea Snellen, 1880, in Veth, Midden-Sumatra 4(2): 35.

Asura subcruciata Rothschild, 1913, Novit. zool., 20: 209, syn. n.

Diagnosis

See Barsine exclusa Butler comb. rev..

Taxonomic note

Hampson (1900) placed porphyrea as a synonym of ‘B’ senara Moore comb. rev. (Java), but the two taxa are sympatric and have distinctly different male genitalia. In senara the valve apex is rounded, with a distal spur from the sacculus ventrally, compared to the more rectangular, heavily sclerotised valve in porphyrea with a stronger, more digitate extension at the ventral angle of the apex. The aedeagus vesica has three groups of larger spines in porphyrea, one extensive, whereas there is just one tightly packed group in senara. The forewing ground colour of senara is paler, yellowish, and red markings are much less extensive.

Geographical range

Sundaland.

Habitat preference

Records are from a wide range of lowland forest types, including coastal and disturbed habitats, up to an altitude of 600m. It was particularly common in alluvial forest during the Mulu survey.

Biology

Piepers & Snellen (1904) described the larva and pupation of this species or senara. It is densely invested with tufts of feathery hairs at each side as well as transverse bands of shorter hairs coalescent from the verrucae like the bands of an armadillo (illustrated also for Lyclene lutara Moore). Pupation is in a cocoon that is encircled by detached setae as in Lyclene.

The host was not identified with certainty but appears to be an angiosperm.

Genitalia: