Cechenena aegrota Butler

Pergesa aegrota Butler, 1875, Proc. zool. Soc. Lond., 1875: 246.

Cechenena aegrota Butler; Rothschild & Jordan, 1903: 800.

Diagnosis

This insect is pale ochreous brown, distinctively marked with blackish brown, the hindwings are mostly the latter colour.

The multiple forewing postmedial is irregular, only slightly oblique, angled sharply basad at the costa where it is conspicuously darker; it is otherwise only conspicuously darker at the dorsum.

The abdomen has a fine dark brown longitudinal line laterally.

Geographical range

N. India to Sundaland.

Habitat preference

Harman (1982) noted the species to be found in a wide range of localities in Brunei.

During the Mulu survey only two specimens were taken, both in regenerating alluvial forest beside a river.

Biology

The larvae were described by Dupont & Roepke (1941). There are two colour forms, of mature larvae, green or purplish red; young larvae are always green, marked with white.

In the green form there are ocellar markings on A1, blue with white spots, ringed white then black; white lines run from the ocelli to the head.

The lateral area has oblique dirty white and yellow stripes marked with black dotted lines.

The horn is rather short, pinkish, downcurved.

The purplish form is similarly marked but with green centred ocelli, and black lines to the head from them; the oblique lateral stripes are greenish; the horn is purplish brown.

The recorded host-plant was Psychotria (Rubiaceae).