Earias flavida Felder

Earias flavida Felder, 1861, Sber. Akad. Wiss. Wien, 43: 34.

Digba uninotata Walker, 1862, J. Linn. Soc. (Zool.), 6: 198.

Earias annulifera Walker, 1866, List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 35: 1774.

Earias sulphuraria Moore, 1887, Lep. Ceylon, 3: 490.

Earias flavida Felder; Holloway, 1976: 22; Kobes, 1997: 51.

Diagnosis

The forewings are bright yellow, grading paler basad. There is a faintly darker reniform and even fainter, punctate, antemedial and postmedial fasciae. The species is always smaller than mjoebergi Prout. Another widespread and similar species, E. luteolaria Hampson, may prove to occur in Borneo. It is distinguished from flavida by the reddish margin and fringes to the forewing. It is treated by Kobes (1997).

Geographical range

Indo-Australian tropics east to Samoa and Tonga.

Habitat preference

Though never common, the species can be found over a wide range of habitats and altitudes from the lowlands to 1930m.

Biology

Bell (MS) described the life history in India. The larva is claviform at rest, spindle-shaped when in motion. The claviform shape is derived from contraction of the anterior segments to produce tumidity. Many of the setal tubercles are prolonged into fleshy, erect, conical processes, giving a spiny appearance; each is surmounted by a fine hair. The body is covered with a dense pile of minute hairs that also extend over the spiny tubercles. T1 has a chitinised collar. The colour is light yellowish brown to smoky black with a broad, marbled, grey or light brown dorsal band that extends down on either side to the spiracles on segments A3 and A4, but only to the dorsolateral region on A5-8. Anterior to A3 there is only a light brown subdorsal band. The venter is light greenish yellow. Pupation is in a papery cocoon, thickish brown, ovoid, strongly truncated anteriorly with a vertical exit slit, and blunt behind. The pupa is ovoid, terminating in a convex cap with no sign of a cremaster. The larvae live among young tender leaves and flowers of the host plant, eating buds and young fruits. The spiny form and the colour camouflage it when amongst the flowers. The host plant was Grewia (Tiliaceae).

Genitalia: