Yepcalphis dilectissima Walker

Ariola dilectissima Walker, 1858, List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln. Br. Mus ., 15: 1751.

Pachylepis limacodina Felder, 1874, Reise Ost. Freg. Novara, pl. 83.

Diagnosis

The red and yellow forewings render this species unmistakeable.

Geographical range

Sri Lanka (ssp. cingalesa Warren); Oriental tropics to Philippines and Sulawesi; Sula Is. (ssp. insulicola Warren).

Habitat preference

The species is frequent in a variety of lowland forest types and has also been taken in disturbed situations.

Biology

Bell (MS) reared dilectissima in India. The head is heart-shaped, smooth, watery chestnut brown with black setae. The body is shining, rather greasy-looking, broader centrally than at each end, with primary setae only, these set on distinctive long tubercles. The colour is rosy brown, with the anal segments and a spiracular band yellowish. Some of the hairs on the tubercles are white.

Pupation is in a hard, blackish, semiovoid cocoon usually placed at the base of a leaf stalk. It consists of chewed particles of bark held together with light orange silk.

The larvae are found on the underside of the leaves of their host-plant, Vitex (Verbenaceae).

Genitalia: