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“Eilema”prabana Moore
Lithosia prabana Moore, 1859 [1860], Cat. Lepid.
Insects Mus. E. Ind. Co.: 304.
Lithosia nigricans Walker, 1862, J. Linn. Soc. (Zool.),
6:103.
Tmetoptera? costosa Felder & Rogenhofer, 1875, Reise öst. Fregatte Novara, pl.
139: 26, ?syn. n.
Lithosia lurida Snellen, 1879, Tijdschr. Ent.,
22:
84.
Eilema prabana celebesa Tams, 1935, Mem.
Mus. Hist. nat. Belg. (Hors serie), 4(12): 35.
"Eilema"
prabana 
(x
1.32)
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Diagnosis.
This is a
small, narrow-winged species, mostly dark blackish grey but with a narrow pale
yellow forewing costa. It is larger and darker than Poliosia muricolor and relatives (see Poliosia muricolor).
Taxonomic
notes. The
taxon costosa is placed in synonymy,
but it is not clear whether this had been done formally earlier. The type
specimen (Moluccas) is placed in the series of
prabana in the BMNH, but the taxon is not referred to by Hampson (1900), by
Strand (1922, Lepidopterorum Catalogus 26),
or included for Lithosiinae in the BMNH card index; Tmetoptera Felder is a monobasic Brazilian genus. The male genitalia
are atypical of the Eilema complex,
particularly the broad valves with unusual costal and ventral processes. The
uncus and saccus are generally shorter, broader and blunter in the only Bornean
male (slide 5462), and the aedeagus vesica has only one large patch of spines
rather than two (the second is vestigial); nigricans
may therefore merit subspecies status. The female has a heart-shaped
scobinate pad posterior to the sterigma, and the bursa is large, but with a
marked central constriction; there are two small scobinate signa distal to the
constriction.
Geographical
range. Java,
Bali, Sumatra, Singapore, S. Burma, Borneo, Sulawesi, Sula Is., Moluccas.
Habitat
preference. Bornean
records appear restricted to the type material of nigricans,
taken in Sarawak, probably in the lowlands, by A.R. Wallace, and a male from
Semongok near Kuching, also in the lowlands.
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