Rusicada revocans Walker comb. n.

Gonitis revocans Walker, 1858, List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 15: 1794

Anomis cuprina Walker, 1865, List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 33: 861, syn. n.

Diagnosis

See the previous species and the keys in the generic account.

Taxonomic note

The sister-species, R. fulvida Guenée, occurs widely in the Oriental tropics and subtropics from the Indian Subregion to Japan, Sumatra and Java. Sympatry with revocans in Sundaland may be discovered when more material is dissected. Typical Australian revocans are greyish red whereas cuprina is a brighter, more orange-red.

Geographical range

Queensland; Borneo, Sulawesi, Moluccas, New Guinea, Bismarcks, Solomons, Vanuatu, Fiji, New Caledonia (ssp. cuprina).

Habitat preference

The species is associated with open habitats and secondary forest from the lowlands to 1200m, and specimens recorded by Holloway (1976) from Tuaran, Bundu Tuhan and Kundasan as revocans are confirmed as that species (see also leucolopha Prout below).

Biology

The larvae of fulvida (Gardner, 1941) and revocans (Holloway, 1979) are similar. They are deep maroon in colour with thin pale grey dorsal and lateral lines and broad yellow dorsolateral bands which are edged and broken with darker brown; pale grey spots occur just dorsal to the yellow band.

The host-plant recorded by Holloway (1979) was Hibiscus (Malvaceae). Records for fulvida (Moore, 1884-1887; Gardner, 1941) are from Kydiain the same family and Waltheria in the Sterculiaceae. One larva has been reared from Ficus (Moraceae) in Papua New Guinea (Miller et al., unpublished).

Genitalia: