Erebus macrops Linnaeus

Noctua macrops Linnaeus, 1768, Syst. Nat., 12 (3) App. : 225.

Noctua bubo Fabricius, 1781, Species Insectorum, 2: 209.

Patula boopis Guenée, 1852, *Hist. Nat. Insectes, Spec. gén. Lépid.*7: 178.

Eupatula macrops Linnaeus; Holloway, 1976: 29; Kobes, 1985: 27.

Diagnosis

The ocellate mark of the forewing is very large and is surrounded distally by three concentric dark areas, including the inner surrounding ring. The fasciae are more conspicuous, irregularly linear towards the base but more blotchy chevron-like distally.

Geographical Range

Indian Subregion, W. China, Burma, Thailand, Sumatra, Borneo.

Habitat Preference

Only one Bornean specimen has been seen, from 1930m on G. Kinabalu.

Biology

Bell (MS) described the larva as a semi-looper, ophiusine in shape, fattest centrally, with only the prolegs on A3 reduced to half size. A8 is humped towards the posterior, with a prominent pair of tubercles set apart and having rounded apices. Segments A1 and A2 are extended relative to the rest. The body is smooth, the primary setae arising from black dots. It is rufous brown, marbled finely all over with greyish white. A yellow dorsal band is marbled finely brown, and there is a similar, double lateral line. Generally, T1 to A2 and A8 to A10 appear rufous, the intervening section being more greyish apart from a rufous spiracular zone on A5. T3, or possibly the anterior of A1, as another larva is described with it there, has a large subdorsal ocellus on each side, rufous brown, darkening to the centre and edged by a fine, wavy white line, with a finer black line outside that. The ventral surface is yellowish with brown dots, and there are large black patches between the prolegs on A4 and A5. Another larva was described as smutty blackish with a reticulation of light yellow-brown, yellow or grey lines. The larva retires to the thickest part of the host shrub during the day, emerging to feed at dusk. Pupation is in a fairly close-fitting cell of green leaves lined with silk, usually in the host shrub. The pupa lacks a powdery bloom. The adult rests on shaded tree trunks on rock faces during the day, with the wings held flat. The costa of the forewing is at more than right-angles to the abdomen. The moth enters dwellings on occasions but rarely comes to light and infrequently to sugar. The host plant is Acacia (Leguminosae). The adult has been recorded as a fruit piercer in Thailand (Bänziger, 1982; Kuroko & Lewvanich, 1993).

Genitalia: