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Mocis
undata Fabricius
Noctua
undata Fabricius, 1775, Syst. Ent.:
600.
Phalaena
archesia Cramer, [1780] 1782, Uitlandsche Kapellen,
3: 145.
Phalaena
virbia Cramer, [1780] 1782, Uitlandsche Kapellen,
3: 146.
Remigia
gregalis Guenée, 1852, Hist. Nat. Insectes, Spec. gén. Lépid.
7:
320.
Ophisma
velata Walker,
[1863] 1864, J.
Linn. Soc. (Zool.), 7: 180.
Remigia
bifasciata Walker,
1865, List
Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 33: 1014.
Cauninda
bifasciata Warren,
1913, Gross-Schmett.
Erde, 3: 333.
Mocis
uberia Wileman, 1923, Entomologist,
56: 190.
Mocis
undata Fabricius; Holloway, 1976: 31; Kobes, 1985: 48.
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Mocis undata 
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Diagnosis.
The ground colour is medium to pale brown as in Trigonodes and
the next species, but with a more irregular pattern of fine dark lines and
obliquely darker shading, the latter linear or slightly sinuous antemedially and
more irregular, expanding from the dorsum to the costa, postmedially. In both
fasciae the obliqueness unusually forms an acute angle basad at the dorsum, the
angle of the antemedial sometimes containing a black spot in males. The
intensity of this forewing pattern is very variable. Females are a redder brown
and have the underside strongly tinged rufous and more conspicuously and darkly
banded than the males. These bands on the underside are not oblique.
Geographical
range. Afrotropical and Oriental Regions; records from Micronesia may be
of this or the Australasian sister-species, M.
trifasciata Stephens.
Habitat
preference. Records are from areas of open habitat, cultivation and
disturbed forest from the lowlands to 1200m.
Biology.
The larva was illustrated by Sugi (1987). It is a slender semi-looper with the
prolegs on A3 and, less so, on A4 reduced, though Moore (1884-1887) and Bell
(MS) indicated that both are absent. It tapers slightly at both ends. It is
greenish grey, sometimes with a yellowish tint, with fine longitudinal lineation
that has paler dorsal and dorsolateral longitudinal zones much as in “Parallelia” arctotaenia (p. 58). An irregular and sparse series
of white spots recurs just within the darker subdorsal zone (or band), with a
larger, dark-edged and irregular white mark just at the edge of this zone with
the dorsolateral pale zone towards the posterior of A1.
The
descriptions by Bell (MS), Sevastopulo (1942) and the illustration by Moore
(1884-1887) indicate that the larva is variable, but (Bell) can be whitish and
finely lined and banded with orange and violet-brown longitudinally. The
intersegmental membrane between A1 and A2 is black, appearing as a transverse
band when the larva is humped at that point (see also Achaea janata on
p. 55).
Another
larva described by Bell was also white but with fine brown-orange lines dorsally
followed by a broad greyish band that extends to the dorsolateral setae and is
spotted profusely with black that sometimes coalesces into four parallel lines.
Below this grey band there are three orange lines, sometimes broken into spots,
in the region of the spiracles, below which is a broad yellow band. The ventral
surface is fuscous to black. On A1 there can be a U-shaped mark sublaterally,
filled with black. Moore illustrated a larva that was finely striped yellow and
brown longitudinally.
Sevastopulo
(1942) described the egg as spherical, silvery green, vertically ribbed. The
hatchling is brown, slender and turns green after it has fed. The halfgrown
larva has a whitish head with brown stripes. The body is greenish grey with nine
longitudinal purple lines; there is a subdorsal black dot on A1. Pupation is in
a cell formed from a rolled leaf lined thinly with silk. The pupa has a powdery
white bloom.
Sugi
stated the species feeds on various legumes (Cytisus,
Desmodium
and
Wisteria
were
listed by Miyata (1983)) and grasses. Robinson et al. (2001)
recorded mostly Leguminosae (Arachis, Butea, Cajanus,
Calopogonium,
Crotalaria,
Derris,
Desmodium,
Glycine,
Indigofera,
Mucuna,
Phaseolus,
Pueraria,
Rhynchosia,
Tephrosia,
Vigna),
but also Shorea
(Dipterocarpaceae),
Hevea
(Euphorbiaceae),
Gossypium
(Malvaceae),
Nephelium
(Sapindaceae)
and Solanum (Solanaceae).
Comstock
(1966) illustrated a very similar larvae for the Australasian sisterspecies, trifasciata,
which pupates in a fragile cocoon within a rolled edge of a leaf. The pupa has a
slight powdery blue bloom. The host plants are also Gramineae and Leguminosae
(Comstock; Common, 1990).
The
adult is known as a fruit piercer in Thailand (Bänziger, 1982; Kuroko &
Lewvanich, 1993).
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