Saroba ceylonica Walker

Thermesia ceylonica Walker, 1865, List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 33: 1061.

Capnodes cascalis Swinhoe, 1891, Trans. ent. Soc. London, 1891: 153.

Capnodes asulca Swinhoe, 1918, Ann. Mag. nat. Hist. (9), 2: 89.

Diagnosis

The wings are a dark, dull brown, with punctate blackish fasciation and reniform marks on the forewing. The hindwing medial and forewing ‘postmedial’, when not obscure, are straight, that of the forewing oblique, angling subcostally as well as continuing straight on, the two components enclosing a lens of brownish blue to blue scales at the costa. The actual postmedial of the forewing (the inner component) is more punctate and irregular but can be obscured by the development of the straight, oblique line (the outer component).

Taxonomic Note

Particular features of the male genitalia are discussed under the next species. The eighth segment is intermediate between that of typical Sarobides and Saroba. The valve processes are relatively basal, the apical part long and slender. The aedeagus is short, broad, the vesica convolute, with cornuti and scobination. The females of both species have a moderately complex sterigma and a short, broad ductus; the corpus bursae is relatively small, with an irregular, incomplete ring of small spines subbasally.

Geographical range

Indian Subregion, Andamans, Singapore, Sumatra, Borneo.

Habitat preference

Only three specimens are known, all taken during the Mulu survey: in dipterocarp forest at 150m on G. Mulu; in lower montane forest at 900m and in montane scrub at 1500m on the limestone G. Api.

Genitalia: