Ophiusa discriminans Walker

Ophiodes discriminans Walker, 1858, List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 14: 1358.

Pseudophia pygospila Snellen, 1880, Tijdschr. Ent., 23: 98.

Anua intacta Hampson, 1913, Cat. Lepid. Phal. Colln. Br. Mus., 12: 437. *

Anua discriminans* Walker; Holloway, 1976: 29.

Diagnosis

See the previous species.

Geographical range

Indo-Australian tropics east to Vanuatu and New Caledonia.

Habitat preference

Only five specimens have been taken in recent surveys: at300m in the lowland forest of Ulu Temburong in Brunei; two at 1000m in lower montane forest on G. Mulu; one at 1618m near the summit of Bukit Retak; one at 1930m on G. Kinabalu.

Biology

Holloway (1979) illustrated and described early and penultimate instars of the larva in New Caledonia. The mature larva resembles that of O. disjungens (see above), but with more distinctly oblique coarser variegation, and the young larva is much more slender, darker, more uniform, but with a subdorsal pair of dark spots approximately at the junction of A1 and A2. The prolegs of A4 and particuarly A3 are reduced, and the larva (particularly the earlier instars) has a strong semi-looping movement. Pupation was in a cocoon incorporating leaves of the host-plant.

The host-plant was Melaleuca (Myrtaceae).

Genitalia: