Amerila howardi (Pinhey ) |
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| Description Male. Fw length 26-29 mm; fw white, weakly scaled and largely transparent, veins dark; fw costa with a long areole extending from the base to about one third of the total winglength, broad at base and sharply tapering distally; hw white on the anterior half, posteriorly and towards the anal angle cream- to ivory-coloured, more densely scaled, and interspersed with long, hair-like androconial scales; hw shape slightly concave at the outer margin towards the anal angle. Head, thorax, and base of abdomen dorsally white; outer sides of femora and tibiae greyish white, inner sides of femora, tibiae, and tarsi red; tegulae with two faint black spots, one basally and another one apically. Abdomen dorsally yellow, ventrally white; the anterior margin of sternite IV covered with a band of velvet-like scales. Female. Similar to male; fw without areole, hw uniformly white, without the ivory-coloured posterior half and the hair-like scales, and the anal angle rounded. |
| Male genitalia | |||
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| view on leftside of vinculum and valva, lateral view | inner side of right valva | tegumen/uncus, dorsal view | aedeagus with vesica everted |
| Uncus very small, triangular and pointed. Valvae short, distally not rounded; outer surface without extrusible coremata; inner sclerotized process short, strongly bent inwards, and with about a dozen short spines on the outer side of its base. Vesica distally with a single large, slender, slightly curved cornutus. |
| Distribution East Africa; northeastern Tanzania; only known from the Usambara mountains. |
| Comments This species is similar to A. catinca, with which it occurs sympatrically. When examining the type series of A. howardi deposited at the BMNH, a male paratype was actually found to belong to A. catinca (see above). Apart from the differences in genitalia, males of the two species can best be told apart by the hw shape: in A. catinca, the outer hw margin is straight and the anal angle is rounded, whereas it is concave in A. howardi with the anal angle somewhat protruding. Furthermore, the inner sides of femora, tibiae, and tarsae are red in A. howardi but yellow in A. catinca. |
| Material Rhodogastria howardi Pinhey, 1955: 14. Holotype male (examined): Amani Ta., E.Usambara Mts., Feb.1953, E.Pinhey / Holotype Rhodogastria howardi Pinh. male 1954 / Brit.Mus., 1954-346. / Type [BMNH]. Type locality: TANZANIA: Usambara Mountains, Amani. Additional material examined. TANZANIA: Tanga: E.Usambara Mts., Amani, ii.1953 (1 male, BMNH); Mal.Inst. Amani, vi.1965 (1 male, BMNH); Usambara-Berge, Amani, 7.-23.iv.1962 (2 males, 1 female, ZSSM); Bumbuli bei Mombo, 1250 m, 25.iv.1933 (1 male, SMFM). |