Marumba dyras Walker

Smerinthus dyras Walker, 1856, List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln. Br. Mus., 8: 25.

Marumba dyras Walker; Rothschild & Jordan, 1907: 274.

Triptogon javanica Butler, 1875, Proc. zool. Soc. Lond., 1875: 254.

Diagnosis

This the smallest species known from Borneo, perhaps somewhat paler than other species, with rufous brown hindwings.

On the forewings beyond the discal mark the weak second and fourth fasciae are close to the stronger first and fifth ones, a feature only seen elsewhere, and not so markedly, in juvencus; juvencus has the marginal zone of the forewing below distinctly darker than the rest whereas it is only weakly so in dyras. The ground colour of the forewing often varies in darkness over the wing.

Taxonomic Notes

Sundanian material is referable to ssp. javanica.

Geographical range

N. India and S. China to the Philippines, Borneo and the Lesser Sundas as far east as Tenimber.

Habitat preference

One male only has been taken on the coast of Brunei at Seria (Harman, 1981).

Biology

Dupont & Roepke (1941) have described the early stages in Java.

The newly hatched larva is white with a black horn.

Later instars are green with the oblique stripes yellow; the final instar is bluish green; the horn is green and the body is covered in granular spines.

The head is triangular.

Variants are yellow with reddish brown oblique stripes, or green with dorsal yellow patches, but these are rare.

The larva is India is similar (Bell & Scott, 1937). Recorded host-plants (Bell & Scott, 1937; Dupont & Roepke, 1941; Pholboon, 1965) are: Bombax, Ceiba (Bombacaceae); Bridelia (Euphorbiaceae); Cajanus (Leguminosae); Hibiscus, Kydia (Malvaceae); Schleichera (Sapindaceae); Buettneria, Helicteres, Pterospermum, Sterculia (Sterculiaceae); Grewia (Tiliaceae).