Page:Life-histories of Indian insects - Microlepidoptera - T. Bainbrigge Fletcher.djvu/65

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T. BAINBRIGGE FLETCHER
19

hooks of latter black; the whole surface of the body thickly covered with minute black spiracles and more sparsely with short white secondary hairs; primary hairs rather short white, warts inconspicuous.

Another larva was of a pale greenish-yellow, the ferruginous markings barely represented by a slight darkening of the ground-colour.

The pupa is attached to the outside of a seed-capsule of the foodplant.

It is about 7 mm. long, moderately stout, dull pale yellow, with an indistinct dorsal ferruginous stripe and a broad ferruginous lateral stripe reaching to the spiracles ; the sixth segment with a large flattened latero-dorsal tr 'cuspidate halberd-shaped i^ojection ; seventh to eleventh segments with smaller pro- jections directed anteriorly ; cremaster double. A larva which suspended itself on 8th March pupated that night and emerged on 17th March, ^v^-p ^opF I , J-^ • ^f ' n Lj, PLATYPTILIA TAPftOBAJ s^ES , FELB. (PLATE III, FIG. 1.) ^^-^ i f"^ • | (TT" J ytA C " — Platyptilia taprobanes,lF elder, Reis^-HJiayai^', t. 14 f. 54(^) ; -Moofer^^. G«yk«vJiI,-^&2^ ; Meyrick, T. E. S., 1907, 482 (1908)^) ; Fletcher, Spol. Zeylan., VI, 14 (1909)(^). PkUyptilia sijtJioffi, Snell., Tijd. v. Ent., XL VI, 54, t. 5 ff. 15, 16(5). This species is known from Ceylon (Hills)(^), Palnis(='), Khasis(-^) ^ and West Java(5). We have specimens from Madulsina, the Shevaroys, Coim- batore, Pusa and Shillong. At Shillong the larva feeds commonly on Scutellaria discolor. The figiire is taken from a spirit specimen, PLATYPTILIA PUSILLIDACTYLA, WLK. (PLATE IV.) T' b fr "} (H'" ) Oxyptilus pusillidactylus, Wlk., Cat. XXX, 933 (1864)(i);^^ .^^^ '^r., - fi-j Platyptilia pusillidactyla , Wlsm., P. Z. S., 1891, 495(-^), id., I.e., 1897, 57(3) ; Meyr T E. S., 1907, 483 (1908)(^) ; Fletcher, Spol. Zeylan., VI, 13, t A f ' 2 t E ff. 5, 6 (1909)C^), T. L. S. (2) XIII, 313 (1909)(«), I.e., 399-400 (1910)(^)', S. Ind. Ins., p. 444, f. 321 (1914)(7A), Entl. Note 7M1916)g Proc. Second Entl. Meeting, p. 39 (1917)(«),^-.c-^ R^.^^-Hr<-^ ^-^ ^ Platyptilia tecnidion, ZelL, Hor. S. E. Ross, XIII, 468-469, (t. 6 f. 162 (1877)(iO). " ^^ ^^^^ Platyptilia hemimetra, Meyr., T. E. S., 1886, 18(i'), B. J., XVII, 135 - (1906)(i-). Platyptilia lantana, Busck, Insec. Inscit. Menstr. II, 103-104 (1914)(i5). Oricrinally described from Jamaica(>) this species is very widely distri- buted and has been recorded from the West Indies(2' 3);Mexico(5), Reunion(i2), India(^-«), CeyIon(5), Hongkong(') and Hawaii("' i^). It was introducea into Hawaii from Mexico to aid in reduction of Lantana iiifestation, but its