Nyctemera coleta (Stoll, [1781])

Stoll, C. ([1781]). In: Cramer, P., De uitlandsche Kapellen voorkomende in de
drie Waereld-Deelen Asia, Africa en America / Papillons exotiques des trois
parties du monde l'Asie, l'Afrique et l'Amerique, vol. 4: p. 153, pl. 368, fig.
H. Described as Phalaena (Geometra) coleta. Translated from the Dutch original.

Fig. H. Coleta. Also belongs among the looper moths, and is likewise spotted
brown and white on both sides of the wings. Its antennae are thread-like, but
the males have them plumose.

Hampson, G. F. (1894). The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma.
Moths, vol. 2: pp. 49-50, as Nyctemera coleta.

1271. Nyctemera coleta, Cram. Pap. Exot. iv, pl. 368, fig. H; C. & S. no. 462.

Nyctemera nigrovenosa, Moore, P. Z. S. 1879, p. 394; id. Lep. Ceyl. ii, pl. 98,
figs. 4, 4 a (larva); C. & S. no. 465.

Differs from tripunctaria in the lower three spots of the postmedial band of
fore wing being separated and having another spot below them towards outer
angle; cilia white below the apex and at outer angle. Hind wing with the cilia
white below the apex, and in most specimens at anal angle.

The form nigrovenosa from Ceylon has veins 3 and 4 of the hind wing black, and
the spots of the postmedial band of fore wing smaller.

Larva hairy; purple, the anterior somites yellowish; each somite black, marked
with short dorsal and lateral white streaks.

Pupa yellow, spotted with black.

Hab. Assam; Ceylon; Burma; Malacca; Java; Ceram. Exp. 50-58 millim.

The entries referred to (tripunctaria, which in turn refers to latistriga and
lacticinia) are earlier ones in the same work (p. 47) and read as follows.

1265. Nyctemera tripunctaria, Linn. Mus. Lud. Ulr. p. 392; C. & S. no. 466.

Nyctemera atralba, Hubn. Verz. p. 178.

Differs from latistriga in the abdomen having black spots on the vertex instead
of bands; fore wing with the streaks below the median nervure, on vein 1, and on
inner margin being much longer; the postmedial spots conjoined into a regular
band; hind wing with the inner edge of the marginal band evenly curved and
waved.

Hab. Assam; Malacca; Singapore. Exp. 50-54 millim.

1264. Nyctemera latistriga, Wlk. Cat. ii, p. 397; Moore, Lep. Ceyl. ii, pl. 99,
fig. 2; C. & S. no. 472.

Nyctemera inconstans, Voll. Tijds. Dierk. i, p. 47 (1863).

Nyctemera arcuatum, Voll. Tijds. Dierk. i, p. 45.

Nyctemera regularis, Snellen, Mid.-Sum., Lep. p. 34 (1880).

Differs from lacticinia in having the broad white streak on base of inner margin
of fore wing replaced by narrow streaks on costa, vein 1, and inner margin, and
by a very broad streak below the median nervure; the postmedial band of spots
with the upper two conjoined, the fourth very large, and fifth absent.

Hab. Throughout India, Ceylon, and Burma; Andamans; Sumatra; Borneo; Java. Exp.,
male 44, female 46 millim.

1263. Nyctemera lacticinia, Cram. Pap. Exot. ii, pl. 128, fig. E; Moore, Lep.
Ceyl. ii, p. 99, figs. 1, 1a (larva); C. & S. no. 463.

Head, collar, and thorax yellowish white, spotted with black; abdomen white, the
extremity yellow; three black spots on the first segment and slight black bands
on the next six above; two paired series of lateral black spots. Fore wing hair-
brown; a broad white streak on base of inner margin; an oblique postmedial band
of five white spots. Hind wing white; a broad marginal brown band with
irregularly curved inner edge.

Larva dull red; a dorsal and two lateral series of radiating tufts of fine black
hairs arising from black tubercles; two long forwardly projecting tufts on 1st
somite.

Pupa red-brown, in a rolled-up leaf.

Hab. China; throughout India, Ceylon, and Burma; Java; Ceram. Exp., male 42,
female 46-48 millim.

Seitz, A. (1915). Nyctemera. In: Seitz, A. (ed.), The Macrolepidoptera of the
World, vol. 10, The Indo-Australian Bombyces and Sphinges: p. 267, pl. 29 a
(German edition: Die Gross-Schmetterlinge der Erde 10: 267).

N. coleta Cr. (29 a). Forewing sooty blackish-brown, with white, small, wedge-
shaped spots in the basal part and an oblique macular band, hindwing white with
a black border; from this border along the median veins black wedge-shaped
streaks extend, whereby the species differs from all the similar ones. The
wedge-shaped spots and the band of the forewing may be narrow, in some places
even dying away, in which case mostly the marginal band of the hindwing is very
broad. Indo-China, across the Sunda Islands to the Moluccas, New Guinea and the
Philippines. In Java and Sumatra there occur beside the typical specimens also
such with a very broad band of the forewing and an almost hyaline hindwing, the
marginal band of which is scarcely half as broad as in typical specimens; I
denominate this form ab. subvitrea ab. nov. (29 a). -- In Ceylon there occurs a
constantly different form, in the hindwing of which the median and its branches
are distinctly marked black; near Colombo and up in Kandy common; this is the
form nigrovenosa Moore (29 a). -- melaneura Btlr. (29 a) has much narrower dark
margins of the wings, but all the veins are thick and black; it mostly comes
from the Island of Nias, but it also occurs in North Australia in a form not
different from Nias-specimens, and dark specimens are known from Ceram as melas
Rob. -- Not rare; I took the species near Singapore in the Botanical Gardens.
The imago flies in day-time and in its flight resembles some Pierids, such as
Ixias females, forms of the group of Pieris nerissa etc.