Sauris hirudinata Guenée

Sauris hirudinata Guenée, 1857, Hist. nat. Insectes, Spec. Gen. Lep., 10: 362

Remodes abortivata Guenée, 1857, Ibid., 10: 364.

Sauris remodesaria Walker, 1862, List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 24: 1253.

Remodes lobata Warren, 1895, Novit. zool., 2 :107.

Diagnosis

Males have rather elongate ovate forewings with numerous soft, dull green fasciae. There are a few dark spots on the margin and subdorsal streaks. The hindwings are distally lobed, dark green but with a diagnostic pale patch just basal to the central lobe of the margin. Females have the forewings a more normal shape with the fasciae tinged grey over a broad medial zone and more lightly subbasally and submarginally.

Geographical Range

Sri Lanka, India, Hong Kong; Is.; Peninsular Malaysia, Borneo (ssp. abortivata).

Habitat Preference

During recent surveys a male was taken at 300m in the Ulu Temburong and a female in secondary and coastal vegetation at Mumong in Brunei.

Biology

Bell (MS) described the biology in India. The larva is cylindrical with a rounded head, pale green with a fine yellow spiracular line. It lives and feeds on the edge of a young leaf (the egg of some species is usually laid on the leaf edge (e.g. Murphy, 1990)), with the body at rest held out at 45 degrees or curved with the front segments resting on the leaf surface. In one description Bell noted that the pupa was suspended ‘both by the tail and a body string like a pierid pupa’ . This characteristic needs further investigation: another Sauris described by Bell pupates in a slight cell or web of silk, attached by the tail. The host-plants were Alseodaphne (Lauraceae) and Lagerstroemia (Lythraceae).

Genitalia: