Parallelia arctotaenia Guenée

Ophiusa arctotaenia Guenée, 1852, Hist. Nat. Insectes, Spec. gén. Lépid. 7: 272.

Parallelia arctotaenia Guenée; Holloway, 1976: 30.

Diagnosis

The facies is reminiscent of that of Bastilla crameri Moore (see p. 67) but the moth is much smaller, lacks a distinctive spot at the hindwing tornus, and has the distal border of the trapezoid costal mark notched rather than straight.

Taxonomic Notes

The male genitalia have reduced complexity compared to other genera in the complex and the female has a complicated antevaginal plate as illustrated, with both sexes showing bilateral asymmetry (Holloway & Miller, 2003). The male valves each bear a single corema.

The species therefore is rather isolated taxonomically.

Geographical range

Japan, Korea and Indo-Australian tropics east to New Guinea and Queensland; also recorded in Vanuatu and Fiji (Robinson, 1975), and there is a specimen in BMNH from the Cook Is.

Habitat preference

The only Bornean specimen seen was taken at 2600m on G. Kinabalu.

Robinson (1976) considered it a species of disturbed habitats on Fiji.

Biology

The larva was illustrated by Sugi (1987). It is an elongate, slender semi-looper, with the prolegs on A3 vestigial and those on A4 reduced.

The anal prolegs are usually splayed out behind.

The colour is greyish brown, finely and densely lineated with darker brown longitudinally.

The dorsal zone (narrowly) and the dorsolateral zone (broadly) is paler than the rest of the body.

There is a pair of black spots marking small tubercles in the darker subdorsal bands on A8, and a black-ringed, ochreous to white patch on each side just within the dorsolateral pale zone towards the posterior of A1. The head is speckled paler rather than striated.

The host-plants noted by Sugi were Quercus (Fagaceae), Rosa(Rosaceae) and Salix(Salicaceae); see also Miyata (1983). Semper (1896-1902) recorded the larva from Ricinus(Euphorbiaceae) in the Philippines.

The adult has been noted to pierce fruit in Thailand (Bänziger, 1982; Kuroko & Lewvanich, 1993).

Genitalia: