Eudocima salaminia Cramer

Noctua salaminia Cramer, [1777] 1779, Uitlandsche Kapellen, 2: 117.

Eudocima salaminia Cramer; Holloway, 1976: 36.

Diagnosis

This and the next species are characterised by dark green forewings with fawn costal and distal margins. In *salaminia these marginal zones are narrower, and the green ground is paler. The hindwing black border is also narrower.

Geographical range

Indo-Australian tropics to Samoa and Tonga.

Habitat preference

Only three specimens have been recorded in recent surveys from: forest at 200m near Tawau in Sabah; from 1465m on Bukit Retak in Brunei; from 2600m on G. Kinabalu.

Biology

The larva was illustrated by Moore (1884-1887), Common (1990) and Tanahara & Tanahara (2001b). It is blackish grey, posteriorly rather square, semi-looping in gait. Below the spiracular level it is distinctly paler, and has a series of three yellow-white marks subdorsally on each side of the first three abdominal segments: a spot and two ocellate marks with broader white lunules anteriorly and narrower, reddish lines completing the ring posteriorly. There is an oblique line of the same yellow-white colour from the proleg backwards on A6.

Tanahara & Tanahara noted a second form of larva in Okinawa. It is mottled and speckled in shades of grey-brown and is diffusely paler in the line of the spiracles. There is an oblique white line running back from the proleg on A6, with black areas posterior to it above and below the line of the spiracles. The ocellate marks are black but with much narrower rings (without an expanded section) enclosing them. There is no white spot on A1. Moore (1881) illustrated a variegated larva of this type but with ocellate marks more as in the first form.

The host plants noted by Common and Tanahara & Tanahara wereSarcopetalumandStephania(Menispermaceae), and Robinsonet al. (2001) recorded additionallyLegnophoraandMenispermum(and Tanahara & Tanahara recorded rejection of native (Okinawa) species ofCocculus andSinomenium) in the same family.*

Genitalia: