SUBFAMILY HERMINIINAE
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Bertula mesilau sp. n.
    
 

Bertula mesilau
Figure 67


15-17mm, 15mm. The forewing facies and coloration are similar to that of alpheusalis, except the medial band is broader, with the antemedial more basal and straight. The postmedial is strongly biarcuate, the concavities distad, and it meets the dorsum running obliquely away from the base. The discal dash is paler as in alpheusalis, but there is also a conspicuous pale orbicular dot. The hindwings are paler, the margins rounded in both sexes, and with dark chevrons in the spaces. The undersides are dirty straw colour with clear, dark brown fasciation. In the male, the antennae are fasciculate, and the long third segments of the labial palps are slightly upturned at the apex, tufted basally, and extend to about two-thirds back over the thorax. The forelegs are not strongly tufted. In the male genitalia the valves are narrow, tapering, the sacculus also with a slight parallel projection apically and a sinuous dorsal margin. The aedeagus is short, and the vesica has a conspicuous reversed cornutus ventrally on a central lobe.

Holotype . SABAH: Mt Kinabalu, Mesilau, 1500m, vii-ix.1965 Cambridge Expedition to Mt. Kinabalu 1965 (H.J. Banks, H.S. Barlow & J.D. Holloway), BM noctuid slide 9455.

Paratypes: 2 (slide 19467) as holotype; 1♀ as holotype but Power Station, 1930m; 1 (slide 19464) SABAH: Mt. Kinabalu, Mesilau, 8.ii.1964 (J. Smart), Royal Soc. Exped., BM 1964-260.

Geographical range. Borneo.

Habitat preference. All specimens were taken in montane forest at 1500m and 1930m on G. Kinabalu.

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