Blenina donans Walker

Blenina donans Walker, 1857 [1858], List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 13: 1215.

Amphipyra laportei Felder & Rogenhofer, 1874, Reise öst. Fregatte Novara: pl. 111, fig. 28.

Blenina grisea Moore, 1877, Proc. zool. Soc. Lond., 1877: 607.

Blenina pannosa Moore, 1881, Descr. new Indian lepid. Insects Colln W.S. Atkinson: 157.

Blenina metachrysa Turner, 1902, Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., 27: 89.

Blenina triphoenopsis Hampson, 1905, Ann. Mag. nat. Hist. (7), 16: 545.

Blenina donans ab. donantis Strand, 1917, Arch. Naturgesch., 82 (A1): 87.

Blenina donans ab. similis Strand, 1917, Arch. Naturgesch., 82 (A1): 88.

Blenina donans donatis Gaede and similis Gaede, 1937, Gross-Schmett. Erde, 11: 409.

Diagnosis

The grey forewings are marked typically for the genus.

This is the only Bornean species with bordered yellow hindwings.

The hindwings are similar below, lacking any medial fascia except at the costa.

Geographical range

Indo-Australian tropics to New Guinea, Queensland, New Caledonia.

Habitat preference

The species is infrequent in lowland and lower montane forest, the highest record being a single specimen from 1618m on Bukit Retak in Brunei.

During the Mulu survey, two-thirds of the material (12 specimens) was taken on the transect of the limestone G. Api.

Biology

The life history in India was described by Bell (MS). The larva is subcylindrical, T2-A1 slightly tumid.

All prolegs are present and fully developed.

The body is smooth, the segments well defined, primary setae only borne on small, disc-like tubercles (pinacula). The head is also smooth, yellowish green.

The body is grass green with the venter tinged blue.

The spiracles are orange, and some pinacula are thinly edged with black.

The pupa is broadly rounded anteriorly, the abdomen conical with the terminal segments forming a low convex cap.

The cocoon is described below.

The larva lives on the underside of young, tender leaves when freshly hatched, but rests fully stretched along a twig or branch in later instars.

It pupates on a sturdy leaf in a cocoon, spinning a light yellow carpet of silk, pyriform with four extensions arranged symmetrically round it.

From this walls of silk are constructed, joined along the dorsal line with a slight peak anteriorly extended with a hollow dorsal process that is flexed backwards.

The moth exits from a vertical slit in this anterior portion.

The rest of the cocoon is dome-like with further small peaks, truncated posteriorly so that, with the four extensions, it resembles somewhat a tortoise with head held erect! The host-plant was Diospyros (Ebenaceae).

Genitalia: