Eugauria albidentata Hampson
- Family: Crambidae
- Subfamily: Musotiminae
- Genus: Eugauria
- Distribution: W.
- Habitat: Malaysia, Indonesia (Java) Philippines. Lowland, 50m.
- Wing Length: 5-7mm
Taxonomy
The holotype of Cataclysta albidentata Hampson 1897 :153 is from Java.
- syn. Eugauria compactalis Snellen, 1900: 291, Pl. 16 fig. 10. TL Java. This is the TS of Eugauria Snellen, 1901: 290. The type is in Leiden.
Shaffer et al. (1996) considered Eugauria a syn. of Cataclysta but here it is treated as a good genus in the same way as treated by Solis & Yen in several publications.
Description
The sp. is mainly dark brown including the head abdomen and thorax. Brown FW with an elongate white triangle extending from the costa in the sub-apical region. Slightly near the apex is a similar muted orange-brown fascia. The FW has a large dark central spot. On the HW is another dark spot with a white pupil, closer to the wing base. The HW sub-margin has a large black patch with five white marginal eye-spots. Note the tornal fold of the HW. A photo in Shen-Horn Yen (2004: pl. 4 fig. H.) Schulze (2000) taxon #355.
Life History
Mu-Yun Wang in her MSc thesis found that Eugauria, a diurnal genus, widely avoids spider attacks by exhibiting its UV reflectance pattern, which is similar to that of the female spider. This is probably a protective strategy also utilised by Brenthia spp. (Lepidoptera: Choreutidae) and the musotimine genus Siamusotima (Solis et al. 2005)
References
- Snellen, P. C. T., ([1901] 1900) Aanteekeningen over Pyraliden., Tijdschr. v. Ent., 43: 265-310, pl. 15-17.
- Shaffer, M., & Nielsen, E.S. & Horak, M. (1996) Pyraloidea (In Nielsen, E.S., Edwards, E.D. & Rangji (Eds.), Checklist of the Lepidoptera of Australia; 164-199, CSIRO, Australia.
- Yen, S-H (2004) Insecta: Lepidoptera, Crambidae, Acentropinae. pp 545-554 In [Yule., C.M. & Sen Y.H. Eds.] Freshwater Invertebrates of the Malaysian Region, 852pp, Academy of Sciences Malaysia Kuala Lumpur.
- Mu-Yun Wang (2008) Exploring the jumping spider mimicry of Eugauria albidentata (Lepidoptera, Crambidae, Musotiminae) through ethological and visual ecological approaches. Unpubl. MSc. Thesis Department of Biological Sciences, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Taiwan.
- Hampson, G.F. (1897b) On the classification of two subfamilies of moths of the Family Pyralidae: The Hydrocampinae and Scopariinae. Trans. ent. Soc. Lond. :127-240.