''Epiplema albida'' is a species of
moth
Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...
of the family
Uraniidae
The Uraniidae are a family of moths containing four subfamilies, 90 genera, and roughly 700 species. The family is distributed throughout the tropics of the Americas, Africa and Indo-Australia.Carter, David, ''Eyewitness Handbook to Butterflies ...
. It was described by
George Hampson
Sir George Francis Hampson, 10th Baronet (14 January 1860 – 15 October 1936) was an English entomologist.
Hampson studied at Charterhouse School and Exeter College, Oxford. He travelled to India to become a tea-planter in the Nilgiri Hills o ...
in 1895. It is found in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, and
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
.
Description
It has a wingspan of 24 mm. Forewings with outer margin evenly curved. Hindwings with slight tails at veins 4 and 7. Male has pale violaceous-greyish body with dark brown frons. Forewings slightly irrorated (sprinkled) with dark brown. There are indistinct red-brown antemedial and postmedial excurved lines, where the latter more or less indented and approaching the former below the cell. A submarginal series of red-brown specks below the apex. Hindwings more thickly irrorated with brown. Antemedial and postmedial lines more prominent and angled outwards at vein 4, where there are rufous patches inside them. A submarginal lunulate line is present. Female more prominently brown irrorated. Forewings with a complete marginal lunulate series present. Hindwings without the patches on the lines which is found in male.
Sri Lankan specimens possess darker striae. The antemedial and postmedial lines of both wings nearer together and filled in with fuscous. These variations suggest the subspecies from Sri Lanka as ''lanigera''.
The larvae feed on ''
Ligustrum robustum
''Ligustrum robustum'' grows as a shrub or small tree up to tall though old specimens of more than a hundred years have been observed with a height of . The fruit of the shrub is an ellipsoid berry, bluish-purple when fully ripe, × . ...
'' (
Oleaceae
Oleaceae, also known as the olive family, is a taxonomic family of flowering shrubs, trees, and a few lianas in the order Lamiales, It presently comprises 28 genera, one of which is recently extinct.Peter S. Green. 2004. "Oleaceae". pages 296-30 ...
). It has been tested for biological control programs of its host plant in
Réunion
Réunion (; french: La Réunion, ; previously ''Île Bourbon''; rcf, label= Reunionese Creole, La Rényon) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. It is located approximately east of the island ...
but had not been released.
www.invasive.org
/ref>
References
External links
Ligustrum robustum (tree, shrub)Progress with the biological control program for Japanese knotweed
Uraniidae
Moths described in 1895
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