''Tetragonus catamitus'', the common butterfly moth, or Philippine callidulid moth, is a

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

Callidulidae Callidulidae, the only known family of the superfamily Calliduloidea, is the family of Old World butterfly-moths, containing eight genera. They have a peculiar distribution, restricted to the Old World tropics of Southeast Asia to Australasia a ...

. It was first described by Carl Geyer in 1832. Noted from

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

, north-eastern

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 ...

, south-west India, the

Andaman and Nicobar Islands The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territory of India consisting of 572 islands, of which 37 are inhabited, at the junction of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The territory is about north of Aceh in Indonesia and separated f ...

, Sri Lanka, the

Tenasserim Hills The Tenasserim Hills or Tenasserim Range ( my, တနင်္သာရီ တောင်တန်း, ; th, ทิวเขาตะนาวศรี, , ; ms, Banjaran Tanah Seri/Banjaran Tenang Sari) is the geographical name of a r ...

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

and from

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

. They are day-flying moths that can be easily mistaken for a butterfly due to the position in which they hold their wings.

Description

The head, thorax and abdomen are dark yellowish and reddish brown. The wings are yellowish and reddish brown. The hindwings are more uniform reddish brown. On the underside, there are dark striations and both the forewing and hindwing have three grey spots in the discal cell. There are four pale rufous bands along the medial, postmedial, submarginal region. Tetragonus catamitus 02143

Taxonomy

The species was named ''Tetragonus catamitus'' by Carl Geyer in 1832 based on a specimen from Java and later described under the name of ''Cleosiris fasciata'' by Frederic Moore. The larvae were described later as being translucent green with a dark black semi-prognathous head and a prothorax with a well-developed prothoracic shield. Young

instar An instar (, from the Latin '' īnstar'', "form", "likeness") is a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, between each moult (''ecdysis''), until sexual maturity is reached. Arthropods must shed the exoskeleton in order to grow or ...

larvae live in a rolled leaf, and the mature larvae live between leaves drawn together with silk.

Range

This species ranges throughout the east and south-east Asian lowland of seasonal or tropical forests where the host fern species are abundant. Kobes (1990) recognized three subspecies, but Holloway (1998) treated all of them as the junior synonyms of the nominotypical subspecies and indicated there is great variation in size and colouration. Tetragonus catamitus 09434

Habitat and ecology

This species occurs in lowland forests, along the boggy areas where the feeding and host plants are dense. Shady, bushy habitats are preferable in day time but unusually can see outside the habitats. Rainy conditions, just after evening dark lights or early mornings are the most active time.

Host plants

August to October is the peak breading season. The larvae feed on ferns '' Drynaria'' and ''

Pteridium Bracken (''Pteridium'') is a genus of large, coarse ferns in the family Dennstaedtiaceae. Ferns (Pteridophyta) are vascular plants that have alternating generations, large plants that produce spores and small plants that produce sex cells (eg ...

'' species. In Taiwan, it was reared from the fern ''

Pteridium aquilinum ''Pteridium aquilinum'' (bracken, brake or common bracken), also known as eagle fern, is a species of fern occurring in temperate and subtropical regions in both hemispheres. Originally native to Eurasia and North America, the extreme lightness o ...

'' (L.) Kuhn subsp. ''latiusculum'' (Desv.).

References

External links

Species notesFamily information
{{Taxonbar , from=Q7706506 Callidulidae Moths described in 1832