Cerynea punctilinealis Walker stat. rev.

Chusaris? * punctilinealis* Walker, [1866] 1865, List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 34: 1175.

Diagnosis

See the previous species. The wings are a more pinkish grey than in congeners, with the medial zone usually paler except for a narrow and diffuse medial fascia. This pale area is bounded distally by an indistinct, darker pink-with-black, crenate postmedial that incorporates very small whitish highlights in the spaces. The forewing has an antemedial that is pale, edged narrowly on each side by darker pink and some black. The discal marks are faint, bipunctate, blackish. Closer to the margins there are black-with-white spots on the veins. The forewing costa is pale fawn. See also the note following.

Taxonomic note

This species has been placed erroneously as a synonym of C. contentaria Walker, but is distinct as indicated above; most references to contentaria through the previous century should probably be applied to punctilinealis. Specimens from the Solomons attributed to contentaria in BMNH have genitalia with valves somewhat longer and with the club-like process of the costa slightly more robust. C. trogobasis Hampson (Queensland, New Guinea, Kei Is.) is closely related, with similar facies and male genitalia. Only trogobasis was listed for Australia in Nielsen et al. (1996). The species complex requires further study.

Geographical range

Indo-Australian tropics east to Solomons.

Habitat preference

The species is generally uncommon, recorded only from forest and disturbed habitats in the lowlands. However, Chey (1994) recorded it in some frequency from a variety of softwood plantations near Brumas in the lowlands of Sabah.

Biology

The species was reared in India by Bell (MS; as contentaria). He noted that the larva resembled that of Tinolius Walker (Holloway, 2005: 124; see also p. 112), but was much smaller. In an earlier description he referred to a more hairy lymantriid, arctiid or noline type of appearance, but revised this in a subsequent note. The prolegs of A3 are absent, and those of A4 are reduced to minute, non-functional cylinders. The head is reddish orange, mottled obscurely and minutely with yellow to leave bands of pure red. The body is a light, dull chocolate brown, with five yellow lines on each side, broken on all except the most anterior and posterior segments by a transverse black band medially on each segment. The intersegmental membrane is whitish dorsally between the segments T3 to A3. The body segments are well-defined, with primary setae only, these being long and distinctly clubbed on T1, T2, A8 and A9, set on chalazae on T1, and black on T1 and T2. There are shining dorsolateral and supraspiracular tubercles on each segment bearing clubbed setae that are white, the dorsolateral ones half the length of the supraspiracular ones. The other setae are longer, not clubbed, some half the length of the body. The spiracles are small, a dull orange.

The larva rests highly looped, but is usually restless when feeding. Pupation is in a roomy cylindrical cell formed by bringing two oval sections of leaf together on the bridge left between the two; a sketch shows one hole on the margin and the other in the interior of the leaf. This type of cylindrical cocoon has also been recorded for Arasada Moore (p. 120) and Metaemene Hampson (p. 145).

Robinson et al. (2001) listed the following host plants for the species as contentaria, mostly derived from Bell (MS):