Aspects of the biology and morphology of Dirphia dolosa Bouvier, 1929 (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae: Hemileucinae)

Abstract

Dirphia dolosa Bouvier, 1929 is an endemic moth from southern Brazil, with available information restricted to occurrence data, natural host plant and adult morphology. This study describes bionomic peculiarities of this species, obtained from observations of larval aggregations in the field and in the laboratory. Data on all developmental stages are presented and compared with those of other Hemileucinae. D. dolosa present a facultative pupal diapause and may have two generations per year under the climatic conditions of the Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil.

Biology and External Morphology of the Immature Stages of Dirphia moderata Bouvier (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae: Hemileucinae) in Anacardium occidentale L.

“…The first studies on the duration of the immature stages of D. moderata (Dias, 1988;Zanuncio et al, 1994;Pereira et al, 2008a, b) recorded cycles with an average of 90-130 days for a complete development of immature stages, which corresponds to approximately 3.5 generations per year, and this same pattern was corroborated in this study for D. moderata in the municipality of Cruz das Almas, as previously determined for other species of the genus recorded in the literature, such as Dirphia araucariae Jones, 1908, and Dirphia dolosa Bouvier, 1929(Specht et al, 2012Zenker et al, 2013), with the same proportion of days of each stage and larval instars, except for pre-pupae and pupa, which may vary according to the host plant, as observed by Pereira et al (2008b). This pattern of ontogeny of the immature stages has also been recorded for other genera of Hemileucinae, such as Lonomia Walker, 1855, Automeris Hübner [1819], and Periga Walker, 1855, specially for hot climates, characterizing such genera as multivoltine (Lorini, 1999;Specht et al, 2006bSpecht et al, , 2007bSpecht et al, , 2011.…”

“…In Hemileucinae, the incubation of eggs covers approximately 9%, 12%, 23% or 25% of immature development (Dias, 1988;Lorini, 1999Lorini, , 2008Specht et al, 2006bSpecht et al, , 2007aSpecht et al, ,b, 2010Specht et al, , 2011, 12% corresponds to a general pattern for genus Dirphia, according to Zanuncio et al (1994); Pereira et al (2008a,b) and Santos et al (2011). D. moderata has an incubation period between 15 and 18 days, similar to D. dolosa (Specht et al, 2012), differing from the species D. araucariae, with an embryo period corresponding to 16%, with approximately 26 days of duration (Zenker et al, 2013). In general, egg morphology of D. moderata resemble those described for other species of the genus (Specht et al, 2012;Zenker et al, 2013).…”

“…D. moderata has an incubation period between 15 and 18 days, similar to D. dolosa (Specht et al, 2012), differing from the species D. araucariae, with an embryo period corresponding to 16%, with approximately 26 days of duration (Zenker et al, 2013). In general, egg morphology of D. moderata resemble those described for other species of the genus (Specht et al, 2012;Zenker et al, 2013).…”

“…In the subfamily Hemileucinae, the larvae are characterized by being gregarious, moving in individual lines in the nocturnal period (processionism). From the second to the sixth instar, they feed preferentially at night and form dense aggregations during the day, a behavior shown by D. moderata in laboratory and reported in the literature, including for other species of Dirphia (Dias, 1988;Zanuncio et al, 1994;Pereira et al, 2008a,b;Specht et al, 2012;Zenker et al, 2013), and also for other genera such as Hylesia Hübner, [1820] (Hemileucinae) (Fitzgerald and Pescador-Rubio, 2002;Specht et al, 2006aSpecht et al, , 2007a.…”

“…Some studies show detailed morphological characters of immature stages of Saturniidae including first-instar larva chaetotaxy, classification of larval external structures (chalazae, scoli, verrucae, and spinules), morphology and sexual dimorphism in pupae, however, most contemplates these aspects partially (Pease, 1960;Zanuncio et al, 1994;Lorini, 1999;Lorini and Corseuil, 2001;Deml and Dettner, 2002;Furtado, 2002;Rougerie and Estradel, 2008;Specht et al, 2006aSpecht et al, , b, 2007aSpecht et al, , b, 2008Specht et al, , 2009Specht et al, , 2010Specht et al, , 2011Specht et al, , 2012Zenker et al, 2013;Albertoni and Duarte, 2015;Moraes et al, 2017).…”