Oraesia emarginata Fabricius 

Noctua emarginata Fabricius, 1794, Ent. Syst. III, 2: 82.

Oraesia metallescens Guenée, 1852, *Hist. Nat. Insectes, Spec. gén. Lépid.*6: 364.

Oraesia alliciens Walker, [1858] 1857, List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 12: 945.

Oraesia tentans Walker, [1858] 1857, List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 12: 954.

Oraesia camaguina Swinhoe, 1918, Ann. Mag. nat. Hist. (9), 2: 90,*

Diagnosis

The species has forewing shape and markings similar to those in Plusiodonta Guenée, but is much more robust, and the male has antennae bipectinate to two-thirds. The male has rather uniform rich brown wings with a reddish golden triangle to a triangular area extending from the tornus up the outer edge of the postemedial. Females are more variegated, less reddish, and usually have a much more conspicuous pale streak along CuA over the second quarter of the wing that has a distinctly darker brown area between it and the dorsum. There also may be a continuation of this pale streak along CuA2 in the third quarter (*O. argyrosigna Moore, mentioned as a possible Bornean species in the generic account, is distinguished particularly by a shorter, broader silvery-white streak in this position, with another one subapically).

Taxonomic note

Poole (1989) retainedcamaguinaSwinhoe as a good species, but its male genitalia are indistinguishable from those of Indianemarginata.

Bornean material is also compatible. However, the record ofemarginatafrom Australia (Nielsenet al., 1996) needs further examination. Larval material from Queensland reared by F.P. Dodd and some preliminary dissections by M.R. Honey in BMNH of adults developing from these suggest that two distinct species may be involved. The larval material is preserved dry but is of two distinct types, both in turn different from the larva of Orientalemarginata as described below. One larva type is black with extensive pale yellow speckling and a more even-sized row of larger yellow spots subdorsally. The other is much paler, brownish with slight longitudinal delineation and a subdorsal row of pale patches, those on A1 and A2 larger. The dark larva has adults with male genitalia similar toemarginata*, and such genitalia have also been detected in material from New Guinea and Tanimbar. The pale larva has adults where the valve has a small digitate process from the interior of the sacculus, and where the aedeagus is slender, without a cornutus in the vesica. The latter has not been detected outside Australia. Both these species are generally smaller than *emarginata and have paler hindwings in the male; they appear to differ subtly in the distal markings of the forewing, though this is generally as inemarginata. There is also a new species in Sulawesi (slide 19292) with a more sinuously oblique forewing postmedial and a darker hindwing thanemarginata. The male genitalia are distinctive: the valves have an interiorly directed spine at the centre of the ventral margin; there are small spined lobes flanking the anellus; the aedeagus vesica has four clumps of slender spines.

Geographical range

E. Africa, Indian Subregion to Taiwan, China and Japan, also in Philippines, Sulawesi and Borneo.

Habitat preference

The only Bornean specimens seen in recent surveys are four from G. Kinabalu: from Bundu Tuhan, an area of cultivation and forest remnants on the western slopes; montane forest at 1620m and 1930m. There are also several from Tenom in the lowlands of Sabah.

Biology

The larva has been described and sometimes illustrated by Moore (1884-1887), Gardner (1941, 1947, 1948b (pupa)), Mutuuraet al. (1965), Sugi (1987) and Bell (MS). It has the prolegs on A3 absent and those on A4 reduced. The head and body are velvety black. The spiracles posterior to A1 are red. There is a dorsolateral row of white-edged yellow patches along each side, two to each segment, the posterior one of the pair smaller. From A2 to A5 the larger spots of each segment are relatively larger, and the intervening smaller ones become red. Some of the primary setae are also based on white spots, and these are enlarged and more frequent on the thoracic segments.

Pupation is within a light cocoon of silk amongst the leaves of the host plant. The pupa does not have a powdery bloom.

The host plants recorded by these authors and Robinsonet al. (2001) wereCissampelosandCocculus(Menispermaceae).*

Genitalia: