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Earias vittella Fabricius
Tinea vittella Fabricius, 1794, Ent. Syst.(3), 2: 293.
Phalaena (Geometra) fabia Stoll, 1781, in Cramer, Papillons
exotiques des trois parties du monde, 4: 126, 249, praeocc.
Aphusia
speiplena
Walker, 1857 [1858], List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus., 12: 770.
Micra partita Walker, 1865, List Specimens lepid. Insects Colln Br. Mus.,
33: 799.
Earias huegeli Rogenhofer, 1870, Verh. zool. –bot. Ges. Wien, 20:
872.
Earias vittella
Fabricius; Kobes, 1997: 52.
Diagnosis. The green wedge dividing the forewing longitudinally
distinguishes this species.
Geographical range. Indo-Australian tropics north to Japan and east to New
Caledonia and
Fiji.
Habitat preference. The only specimen seen in recent surveys is from
disturbed, secondary vegetation in the lowlands of Brunei.
Biology. The life history in India was described by Bell (MS) and Gardner
(1947). The larva is cylindrical, stout, and stands up on the prolegs and
claspers which are all present but weak. The body is white, dark lilac and
orange in colour, shining, the orange as spiracular patches. The hair tubercles
of segments T2 and T3 and of A7-10 are more prominent than on the rest of the
segments. There is a broad dorsal whitish yellow band from T3 to A8, very
irregular, consisting of patches, spots and lines. T1 has a glossy blackish
collar. Tubercles of T2 are all orange, but only the dorsal ones of T3 and none
on the other segments. The venter is greenish. The setae are prominent, long,
fine. Gardner described the larva as generally dark brown with irregular white
patches, and with orange spots associated with the setae. He listed diagnostic
features between vittella and E. insulana Boisduval, not known in
Borneo.
The pupa is stout, roundedly conical at the posterior end without cremastral
ornamentation. It is formed in a cocoon on a leaf. The cocoon is a semiovoid,
slightly peaked dorsally above the vertical emergence slit anteriorly.
The larvae live in the fruits of their host-plant, mostly species of Hibiscus
but also on other malvaceous plants. Further host records (Pholboon, 1965;
Robinson, 1975; Yunus & Ho, 1980; Zhang, 1994; unpublished IIE records, Robinson
et al., 2001), all Malvaceae, include Abelmoschus, Abutilon,
Alcea, Gossypium, Hibiscus, Malachra, Malvastrum,
Sida, Thespesia and Urena. Malumphy & Robinson (2002)
recorded the species from Solanum (Solanaceae).
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