Image of Ilema vaneeckei Collenette ♂ — ♂

Ilema vaneeckei Collenette stat. rev.

Dasychira vaneeckei Collenette, 1932, Novit. zool., 38: 86.

Dasychira callima Collenette, 1932, Novit. zool., 38: 89, syn. n.

Dasychira vaneecki Collenette; Holloway, 1976: 51.

Diagnosis

There are two forms of this species, both with dark green forewings. The typical one has the hindwing yellow with three blackish spots: a discal lunule and subapical and subdorsal sections of the submarginal. The callima form has the hindwing dark brown except for a narrow marginal zone of brownish orange (clearer in Sumatran specimens). The next species, montanata Holloway, has only been taken in the yellow form. It is larger and perhaps more lightly marked on the hindwing, but can only reliably be distinguished from the male genitalia, where the uncus is broader, and much less distinctly bifid. The more ventral of the two apical processes on the valve is vestigial in montanata.

Taxonomic note

Schintlmeister (1994) regarded this and the next species as referable toI.chloroptera Hampson (N.E. Himalaya), which shows a similar kind of dimorphism but with the outer border of the hindwing submarginal more distant from the margin, and with this broader marginal zone a clear yellow in the form with a dark hindwing. There are also small but consistent differences in the male genitalia, as discussed above for the two Sundanian species. In chloropterathe uncus is bilobed as in vaneeckei, but the tegumen is also slightly shouldered on either side of it. The valves are longer, apically produced and rounded between the two processes, the processes being more robust and more equal in size. The aedeagus is longer in chloroptera and more strongly curved over the basal part rather than evenly curved.