FAMILY LASIOCAMPIDAE
View Image Gallery of Family Lasiocampidae

Gastropacha leopoldi Tams
Gastropacha pardale leopoldi Tams, 1935: 49; Holloway, 1976: 90; Lajonquière, 1976: 167.
Gastropacha leopoldi Tams; Lajonquière, 1977a.


Gastropacha leopoldi
(natural size)


Gastropacha leopoldi
(natural size)


Diagnosis.
The oval shape of both wings with the reticulated pale patch on the hindwing renders this species unmistakable, though the latter feature is obscure in the paler, more uniform female.

Taxonomic notes.
Lajonquière (1977a) showed that G. pardale Walker as treated by Tams (1935) is in fact a complex of species. So far only one has been recorded from Borneo.

Geographical range. Borneo, Sumatra.

Habitat preference. The species is found, never commonly, in forested localities from the lowlands to about 1800m.

Biology. The larva of the related species pardale Walker has been recorded as feeding on Enterolobium (Leguminosae) in Brunei (CIE records) and on Baccaurea (Euphorbiaceae) and Pithecellobium (Leguminosae) in Thailand (Pholboon 1965). Bascombe (in litt.) reared it from Aporusa (Euphorbiaceae) in Hong Kong; the head and thorax are shown in above.

Sevastopulo (1946) reared the larva in India on Carissa (Apocynaceae). The egg is a slightly flattened ovoid, chalky white with an olive-brown spot at the micropyle and the opposite end and a diffuse ringed blotch in the same colour on the side. Early instars are dark grey with transverse dark bands dorsally on T2 and T3. The abdominal segments have subdorsal black spots edged with orange above; there are lateral lappets and dorsal tufts of black hair. The subdorsal abdominal spots change to a quadrilateral array of orange spots with age, the transverse band on T2 develops an anterior orange fringe and that on T3 becomes a transverse blue band with a black spot at each end (all black in the final instar). Segment A8 has a double dorsal wart, orange with buff bristles. The mature larva is brownish grey speckled with black; the lappets are tufted buff, the thoracic ones with longer hair and that on T1 double.

Pupation is in a longish, pale, cylindrical cocoon with blunt ends and impregnated with a chalky substance. This last also covers the smooth, pale olive brown pupa.

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