Lajonquierea poeciloptera Grünberg

Taxonomic Notes

The only Bornean record for Lajonquierea poeciloptera is from Sapulut (Zolotuhin & Pinratana, 2005; as Sipulut), in an area of logged-over forest at about 300m in Sabah. The record from northern Thailand is a singleton from Sansai on 17 September 1985 (Zolotuhin & Pinratana, 2005: 141). This locality is suspect, as the data are exactly the same as for several other highly disjunct records for Sundanian species. The others are otherwise Bornean endemics (Kononenko & Pinratana, 2005: 131; de Vos, 2007). The male genitalia of poeciloptera are illustrated in Part 3: Fig 25, and the moth is illustrated by Holloway & Bender (1990: Plate 1).

The larva of a species that may be poeciloptera has been reared by T.M. Leong (pers. comm.) in Singapore on Syzygium (Myrtaceae), probably the first record for the genus. The larva (photographed by T.M. Leong) is typical of the family, with numerous secondary setae generally distributed and on lateral lappets. No transverse saddles of short black spines have been observed on the thoracic segments. The larva is mostly pale brown, speckled darker, but the head is much paler with blackish markings: a pair of longitudinal black bars dorsally; “head and T-shirt” markings on each side dorsolaterally; a triangle on the frons. The scoli on T1 are particularly prominent, the laterals twice as long as the dorsolaterals, each pale-tipped, the tips giving rise to brushes of long black hairs with a distinctly paler distal quarter. The dorsolateral scoli are darker than the lateral ones, though the latter grade darker distally before the pale tips.

Genitalia: