Nola ?quadrimaculata Heylaerts stat. rev.
Nola quadrimaculata Heylaerts, 1892, Annls. Soc. ent. Belg., 36: 43 **.
**
Geographical range
Indo-Australian tropics from N.E. Himalaya to Queensland and the Solomons; the distribution in mainland Asia requires further investigation.
Habitat preference
The few records in recent surveys are from lowland localities with secondary forest, a singleton from an arboretum, two from coastal forest in Brunei and two from lowland alluvial forest near G. Mulu.
Biology
Given the confusion over the identities of species in this complex, it is difficult to disentangle all the biological data that have in the past been attributed to internella or analis (e.g. in Robinson et al., 2001). The description of the biology and illustration of the larva and cocoon of internella (see above) by Hampson (1900) may refer to pascua or quadrimaculata. The head is brown, T1 and T2 are reddish and the rest of the body is yellow to A6. There are two broad black subdorsal stripes on A1 and A2, continued more narrowly back to A6, and a purple lateral stripe from T2 to A9. The anal area is reddish brown, and the verrucae bear short pale hairs.
The cocoon is compact, boat-shaped.
The host plant was Rubus (Rosaceae), the larvae feeding inside the fleshy young shoots.
Bell (MS) reared what he considered to be analis in southern India.
The larva is typically noline, the body light yellow with a lateral purplish band and ventral suffusion of the same colour.
The lateral verrucae are yellowish, the more dorsal ones orange, white and black.
A8 has a trapezium-shaped purple dorsal patch that attenuates anteriorly to a line forward to A4, but A1 to A3 are more broadly purple dorsally, and the thoracic segments also have purple marks.
Most secondary setae are light grey or translucent, but some are orange on T1, T2, A8 and A9; the large dorsolateral verrucae on A1-3 and A7 bear black setae.
The setae are variable in length; the longest can attain half the length of the body.
The head is a glossy pale orange with darker marking.
Bell also noted variants that were yellow and black with orange verrucae and a green ventral surface, and others brownish black, marbled with yellowish white, with purple, orange and white verrucae.
The eggs are laid singly or in batches.
The larvae are restless, the early instars very hairy and sometimes blown away by wind.
They live and feed on the flowers of the host plant.
Pupation is in a triangular cocoon, peaked anteriorly, that incorporates bark particles and is attached to a twig or branch.
The pupa lacks a cremaster, and is bluntly rounded at both ends.
Bell also described a larva that he considered might be pascua, with a glossy black head and a pinkish brown body, lined with white and yellow.
The verrucae are yellowish except for the dorsolaterals of A1-3 and A7 which are shiny black, set in velvety black patches and bearing black setae (these are white on other verrucae); there is a dorsal black patch on each of T1 and A8. The host plants recorded by Bell in southern India were Memecylon (Melastomataceae) and Terminalia (Combretaceae). Other host-plants noted for the complex, mainly from India, are (Robinson et al., 2001): Mangifera (Anacardiaceae); Durio (Bombacaceae); Ricinus (Euphorbiaceae); Pennisetum, Sorghum (Gramineae); Acacia, Cajanus (Leguminosae); Nephelium (Sapindaceae); Lantana (Verbenaceae). Records for Pennisetum and Cajanus specified seed-feeding, and Bell noted flower feeding for the complex in India, as indicated above.
The record from Durio is that of Piepers & Snellen (1904) from Java, so is most likely to be attributable to quadrimaculata.
Genitalia:
