Trigonodes cephise (Cramer, 1780)
(one synonym : Chalciope saina Swinhoe, 1918)
EREBINAE,   EREBIDAE,   NOCTUOIDEA
 
Don Herbison-Evans
(donherbisonevans@yahoo.com)
and
Stella Crossley


male
(Photo: courtesy of Buck Richardson, Kuranda, Queensland)

This caterpillar is pale brown with darker brown lines along the body. The first two pairs of prolegs are reduced, so that it moves with a looper action. It has been found feeding on :

  • Beach Pea ( Vigna marina, FABACEAE ).

    The pupa is brown with a white coating.


    male
    Photo: courtesy of Buck Richardson, from
    Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art

    The adult moth has pale brown forewings with large dark brown triangle in the middle. The hindwings are pale brown with a dark submarginal arc of dark marks. The dark brown triangle on each forewing is transected by a broad pale diagonal band from mid-costa to tornus.


    female
    (Photo: courtesy of Buck Richardson, Kuranda, Queensland)

    In the female this pale band is enlarged to a pale internal triangle.

    The species occurs across the south Pacific, including :

  • Fiji,
  • New Guinea,
  • Samoa,

    and in Australia in:

  • Queensland.


    female, drawing by Pieter Cramer, listed as Noctua cephise,

    Uitlandsche kapellen voorkomende in de drie waereld-deelen,
    Amsterdam Baalde, Tome 3 (1782), Plate CCXXVII, fig. C,
    Image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.


    Further reading :

    Ian F.B. Common,
    Moths of Australia,
    Melbourne University Press, 1990, Fig 46.4 and p. 452.

    Pieter Cramer,
    Uitlandsche kapellen voorkomende in de drie waereld-deelen,
    Amsterdam Baalde, vol. 3 (1782), pp. 59-60, and also Plate 227, fig. C..

    Buck Richardson,
    Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art,
    LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2015, p. 156.


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    (updated 10 March 2010)