Page:Life-histories of Indian insects - Microlepidoptera - T. Bainbrigge Fletcher.djvu/101

 30 LIFE-HISTORIES OF PTEROPHORID^ PSELNOPHORUS ALBITARSELLUS, WLSM. I Alucita albitarsella, AVlsm,, in Swinh., Cat. Lep. Het. Oxford Miis., II, 542 (1900). This species was described from a single specimen from Ootacamund. I have examined this (type) specimen in the Oxford Museum and make it to be a Pselnophorus and not an Alucita. We have a specimen from the Palni Hills. " Larva white, about half an inch long, with a few long hairs scattered about its body. It burrows into the shoots of a common jungle plant. Pupa suspended by tail from underside of a leaf (Mmchin) ". ALUCITA NIVEODACTYLA, PAG. Alucita niveodactyla, Pag., Zoologica, XXIX, 240 (1900) (i) ; Meyr., T. E. S., 1907, 490 (1908)(-') ; Fletcher, Spol. Zeylan, VI, 36, t. F f. 9 (1909)(3) ; Poulton, Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1909, p. 39(^). Aciptilia nivea, Snell., Tijds. voor Ent., XL VI, 56, t. 5 f. 17^^). This species is widely distributed and is recorded from the Bismarck Archipelago(i), Java(^), Cochin China('*), the Philippines (-) and Ceylon(^). In India and Ceylon it is apparently confined to the Hill districts. We have it from Shillong and Cherrapunji. " The larva feeds on the young leaves of an Ipomoea, eating the leaves from the outside and not entering within the unexpanded leaf in the manner of Sleganodactyla concursa. In colour it is of a uniform pale yellowish-green thickly studded with long fasciculated tufts of whitish hairs, of which those of the dorsal row are the longest and sometimes tipped with brown. These hair-tufts are extremely complicated, and their appearance will be best under- stood from the rough sketch of a larval segment (Plate F, fig. 9) ; under the microscope these tufts of long hairs recall the armature of spines exhibited by an Echinid "(3). " The pupa is green, thickly covered with pale green spinous hairs and with an interrupted dorsal and sub-dorsal row of black spots. The moth emerges after about a week "(•^). STEGANODACTYLA CONCURSA, WLSM. Stegayiodactyla concursa, Wlsm., Ent. Mo. Mag. 1891, 241('), Novit. Lepidopt. t. 12 f. 3(2) ; Fletcher, Spol. Zeyl., VI, 9, t. E ff. 1-2 (1909)f). This species is widely distributed in Ceylon and has been found in India at Belgaum and in Coorg. It has also been recorded fropi Sumatra by Hering [Stett. Ent. ZeiL, 1903, 96).