FAMILY LIMACODIDAE
View Image Gallery of Family Limacodidae

Pseudidonauton Hering

Type species: admirabile Hering.
The species are small, the wings pale brown, the forewings with a basal dark brown zone clearly defined by a straight distal border and, in the Sundanian species, with a subapical mark of the same colour.

The antennae of both sexes are more or less filiform, those of the male slightly thickened. The palps are upcurved with the third segment conspicuous. The venation of the wings is as in Fig. 39.


Pseudidonauton admirabile

The male genitalia have both uncus and gnathus bifid with the apices simple in the Sundanian P. bhaga Swinhoe comb. n. but with those of the uncus bearing setae and of the gnathus themselves apically bifid in P nigribasis Hampson comb. n. from India. The valve of nigribasis has the apex of the sacculus produced into a long slender spine, the valve distally to it being slender, one and a half times as long as the sacculus. In bhaga the saccular spine is emphasized curved, and the distal part of the valve is smaller than the sacculus, triangular.

The female genitalia (this sex available only for nigribasis) have the apophyses of segment 8 reduced to small lobes. The ovipositor lobes have their dorsal ends distinctively sclerotised and are overlapped by a disc-like structure. The ductus is relatively short and the bursa contains a longitudinal ridge of dark scobination subbasally one third of its length.

It is not possible to assign the genus to any of the groupings discussed in the introduction on adult characters. The larva is unhelpful also.

Bell (MS) described the larva of nigribasis. It is semiovoid almost without processes, resembling a greenish lump of fat. The carapace is sculptured like a squared pavement, the squares slightly convex, close-fitting. There are depressed dorsal and dorsolateral lines, darkish hairs and small lateral tubercles.

The pupa is enclosed in a nearly spherical cocoon, hard, red-brown, covered superficially with yellow silk.

The larvae are found severally on the undersides of Dalbergia (Leguminosae) leaflets. The cocoon is found between leaflets, which are stuck to it with the yellow silk.

<<Back >>Forward <<Return to Contents page


Copyright © Southdene Sdn. Bhd. All rights reserved.