Zeuzera conferta Walker

Zeuzera conferta Walker, 1856, List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln. Br. Mus. 7:1536.

Zeuzera roricyanea Walker, 1862, J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Zool.) 6:177, syn. n.

Zeuzera neuropunctata Gaede, 1933, in Seitz, Gross-Schmett. Erde 10: 812.

Zeuzera roricyanea Walker; Toxopeus, 1948: 170; Roepke, 1957: 17; Barlow, 1982: 43.

Diagnosis

In the male the forewings have the black spots strongest on the veins rather than between them, and there is a distinctly more opaque white zone, free of black spots, at the end of the cell. In the female there are more typical transverse black striae, but again a zone free of black spots at the end of the cell.

Taxonomic Notes

The holotype of conferta is female and hence has not been associated in the past with the males on which the other names are based. Reared series of both sexes indicate the conspecificity.

Geographical Range

N.E. Himalaya, Indochina, Sundaland, Sulawesi, Moluccas, New Guinea.

Habitat Preference

The species was taken infrequently in lowland forest during the Mulu survey. It also appears to be frequent in mangrove localities in the Bay of Brunei.

Biology.

Toxopeus (1948), recognising the distinction between this and the next species clearly for the first time, recorded conferta from Barringtonia (Lecythidaceae), Ochroma (balsa; Bombacaceae) and Theobroma (Sterculiaceae) in Java. CIE records add Eucalyptus (Myrtaceae) and Sonneratia (Sonneratiaceae).

Genitalia: