Nyctemera baulus (Boisduval, 1832)

Boisduval, J. B. A. (1832). Faune entomologique de l'Ocean Pacifique, avec
l'illustration des insectes nouveaux recueillis pendant le voyage. Lepidopteres.
In: Dumont d'Urville, Voyage de decouvertes de l'Astrolabe, Entomologie 1: p.
200. Described in the genus Leptosoma. Translated from the Latin and French
original.

5. L. baulus. Boisd.

Fore wings black, with a white submacular band; hind wings white with a broad
black margin; thorax with fulvous lines; abdomen with white rings, the anus
fulvous.

Upper wings blackish, with a white, almost macular band; the lower ones white,
with a rather broad black border; thorax streaked with yellow; abdomen ringed
with white, with the anus fulvous.

It is of the size of Coletta.

It is found at Bourou.

Seitz, A. (1915). Nyctemera. In: Seitz, A. (ed.), The Macrolepidoptera of the
World, vol. 10, The Indo-Australian Bombyces and Sphinges: pp. 270-271, pl. 29 i
(German edition: Die Gross-Schmetterlinge der Erde 10: 270-271).

N. baulus Bsd. Of this species Boisduval has not only supplied us with an
entirely insufficient description fitting to very many Nyctemera, but he also
seems to have sent abroad very different forms under this name and confounded
them with others. Thus quite a number of forms from the most various districts,
from Java to the Philippines and from Indo-China to North Australia, have been
collected, either as synonyma, or as side-forms or subordinate forms of baulus,
many of which were regarded as separate species, certainly often also correctly
so. The typical baulus Bsd. (29 i) is, according to Swinhoe, said to be
identical with mundipicta Wkr., but also with herklotsi, which seems to be quite
impossible, because mundipicta is quite certainly not identical with herklotsi
from which it is very considerably distinguished already by the shape of the
wings. If we take baulus to be identical with mundipicta Wkr., it would have to
be a form allied to lacticinia in the colouring, which, however, shows the
following differences: the proximal margin of the forewing is in its basal part
not so broadly white. On the other hand there are white lines on or between the
veins in the basal part of the forewing. The oblique band of the forewing is
mostly in the middle somewhat wider. The tooth of the marginal band of the
hindwing is more pointed and higher. The insect itself is mostly somewhat larger
than lacticinia; its range extends across the Sunda Islands and New Guinea to
North Australia. -- picata Btlr., described from Sumatra, Pagenstecher thinks to
be identical with mundipicta. It is larger, the basal stripe in the submedian
fold of the forewing is narrower, the border of the hindwing narrower and
abruptly ending above at the 1st median vein, in order to reappear next to the
anal angle as a narrow diffuse margin. -- aluensis Btlr. (29 h) is almost
exactly like a lacticinia, but the band of the forewing is traversed by thick
black veins; Alu, Salomons. -- illustris Swinh., considered by Butler to be a
form of aluensis and likewise brought from Alu, is according to Swinhoe entirely
different from it. Thorax and abdomen are white, in some places tinted yellow,
the former with 3 black longitudinal stripes, the abdomen curled black, at the
end ochreous. The basal part of the veins and the proximal margin of the
forewing is streaked white, a white streak in the cell and a broader one below
the cell, the latter streak extending into the lower part of the discal band. Of
the spots forming this band the 1st and 3rd are the smallest, the 2nd being
large, reniform, the 4th longer, the 5th the longest. Hindwing as in baulus. --
tertiana Meyr. (= latistriga Snell.) (29 i) is distinguished by a ray coming
from the ray on the submedian fold extending into the band; from the Pacific
Islands and the Malayan Islands to Australia. -- simulatrix Wkr. (29 i), in
which the basal ray is still stronger, differs from tertiana by the narrowness
of the almost oval band of the forewing in tertiana; Celebes. -- nisa Swinh. is
marked exactly as simulatrix, but it is smaller, the dark ground of the wings is
deeper.

The lacticinia referred to is described on the same page as follows.

N. lacticinia Cr. (Vol. II, t. 18 h). The typical form of this widely
distributed species is presumably the South Chinese form I figured in Vol. II of
the Macrolepidoptera. The oblique band is rather broad, but thickly traversed by
the median and its branches, the black margin of the hindwing projects
proximally in a tooth. Distributed over the whole of India as far as China.
Ceylon-specimens have a remarkably narrow band of the forewing, whilst in
Penang-specimens it is broader than in typical Hongkong-specimens. Abdomen
white, posteriorly yellow. Nearly everywhere, where it occurs, the most common
Nyctemerid.