Darna (Darna) metaleuca Walker

Artaxa metaleuca Walker, 1862, J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Zool.) 6:126.

Darna plana Walker, 1862 ,Ibid. 6:126.

Darna metaleuca Walker; Hering, 1931: 718.

Diagnosis

The forewing is pale pinkish orange with a bar on the costa submarginally; the dorsum is broadly and diffusely white. The hindwing is pale yellow.

Taxonomic Notes

Swinhoe from Thailand is externally similar but has the valve of the male genitalia less erect and the costal process longer, narrower, more sinuous.

Darna Walker was treated in a broad sense in Part 1 and by Cock et al. (1987), with Orthocraspeda Hampson, Oxyplax Hampson and Ploneta Snellen brought in as subgenera on the basis of features of the base of the valve costa, the uncus and of the lateral scoli of larval segments A2 and A7. These were challenged as synapomorphies by Solovyev & Witt (2009), who treated all the above as full genera. This is followed here, but with the recommendation that, in any future morphological and/or molecular analyses, all these genera, together with Devas Solovyev & Witt (type species Darna senescoides Holloway, Sumatra), should be treated as the in-group.

Geographical Range

Sundaland.

Habitat Preference

The species has been encountered infrequently during the Mulu survey and in Brunei in lowland forest types such as alluvial and hill dipterocarp. One specimen was taken at 1500m in upper montane forest on the limestone G. Api.

Biology

The larva was described and illustrated by Piepers & Snellen (1900). It is deeper than broad, the dorsum very straight. It is dark or light green with subdorsal lines of chalky white. The dorsolateral spiny tubercles are very much smaller than the laterals, the posterior pair of which is very long; the anterior pair of the dorsolaterals is brown. The host-plant recorded was Bombax (Bombacaceae, as Eriodendrum).

Genitalia: