Hippotion rosetta Swinhoe

Chaerocampa rosetta Swinhoe, 1892, Cat. Lep. Het. Mus. Oxon., p. 16.

Hippotion depictum Dupont & Roepke, 1941: 70,

Diagnosis

See Hippotion boerhaviaeFabricius.

Taxonomic Notes

See previous species.

The record of H. boerhaviae from Cocos-Keeling I. (Holloway, 1983) was a misidentification of rosetta.

Geographical range

Indo-Australian tropics to Solomons.

Habitat preference

This species is common in lowland open habitats, but has also been taken at 2600m on G. Kinabalu.

Biology

The larva was described by Dupont & Roepke (1941); these authors consider that Bell & Scott (1937) also described this species under boerhaviae. The larvae are green or greyish brown.

Both forms have a configuration of ocelli as in boerhaviae, perhaps slightly smaller overall.

That on A1 is black with white spots circled by a yellow and black ring.

Those on other segments are brown, ringed black and yellowish white.

The horn is short, yellowish green with a black tip in the green form, and unicolorous grey-brown in the brown form.

The host-plant was Borreria (Rubiaceae); the larvae would not feed on Oldenlandia, the Javan host of boerhaviae. Host-plants recorded in the literature (see boerhaviae above) could be referable to either species.

Genitalia: