Serrodes campana Guenée

Serrodes campana Guenée, 1852, Hist. Nat. Insectes, Spec. gén. Lépid

Diagnosis

The separation of a marginal dark area from a medial paler, often creamy area by a straight, transverse, double, pale fascia is distinctive; the basal area contains black patches in a triangle separated by grey, the triangle forming a straight basal boundary to the pale medial area, except at the dorsum where the boundary loops strongly distad.

Geographical range

Indo-Australian tropics to E. Australia, Fiji, Samoa and New Caledonia; the more easterly populations are referred to ssp. callipepla.

Habitat preference

Four Bornean specimens have been located, all montane: from 2360m at the summit of G. Mulu; from 1618m at the summit of Bukit Retak in Brunei; two from 1930m on G. Kinabalu.

Biology

The mature larva was illustrated by Moore (1884-1887), Kuroko & Lewvanich (1993), Tominaga (2000a) and Tanahara & Tanahara (2000). It is somewhat ochreous blue-grey, finely and densely speckled with bluish black, the spiracular zone of the abdomen forming a darker but irregular band with a more rufous edging above and below. This rufous band extends across A1 in front of a transverse black saddle; A1 is distinctly swollen at this point. The prolegs all appear well developed except those on A3 which are reduced; the plantae are expanded to give each a T-shape. All the legs are ochreous.

The host plants recorded (also Robinson et al., 2001) are all in the Sapindaceae: Lepisanthes, Nephelium, Sapindus, Schleichera. In Japan it feeds on Acer (Aceraceae). Tominaga (2000a) noted that this host plant family combination was also seen in the notodontid genera Dudusa Walker and Tarsolepis Butler.

The adult is a fruit piercer (see the generic account).

Genitalia: