Pantydia metaspila Walker

Toxocampa metaspila Walker, 1857, List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 13: 1032.

Ophiusa pallidilineaWalker, 1858, List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 15: 1832.

Toxocampa moolla* Swinhoe, 1885,Proc. zool. Soc. Lond., 1885: 459.

Pantydia metaspila* Walker; Holloway, 1976: 34.

Diagnosis

The forewing facies is somewhat variable but always has a straight, dark-edged, pale, transverse fascia submarginally and usually a black mark subdorsally at one quarter; the reniform is usually slightly paler than its surroundings.

The zone of the forewing basal to the pale fascia often has diffusely darker medial and antemedial bands but these are always weak.

The hindwing has a pale basal two thirds and a darker grey distal third, but with a darker medial fascia just within the paler part.

Geographical range

Sri Lanka, Maldives, China, Taiwan, Sundaland, Philippines, Sulawesi, Tenimber, New Guinea, Queensland, Bismarcks, Solomons, Vanuatu, Fiji, New Caledonia, W. Carolines (Yap).

Habitat preference

The species appear to be rare in Borneo, represented by single specimens from Bidi in the lowlands of Sarawak and from Kundasan, an area of cultivation at 1050m on the southern slopes of G. Kinabalu.

Chey (1994) recorded a specimen in a Gmelina(Verbenaceae) plantation in the lowlands of Sabah.

Biology

Robinson (1975) described the larva in Fiji as pale russet brown, with faint white mottling laterally.

The host plant was Vigna (Leguminosae, also noted by Miyata (1983) and Robinson et al. (2001)).

Genitalia: