The wingspan is about 30mm. Adults have translucent whitish wings with broad dark brown borders. The body is whitish below, and brown on top of head and thorax as well as the end of the abdomen. There is a tuft of light brown "hairs" on the tip of the abdomen, vestigial in the male but well developed in the female. It is formed by long scales which are carried in a pocket on each side of the 7th abdominal segment, from where they can be everted to form the tufts. Unfertilized females are often seen sitting around with the tuft fully spread, forming two flower-like clumps of scales, which move slowly to spread their pheromones. These have been identified[2] as consisting mainly of (E,E)-10,12-hexadecadienal and (E)-11-hexadecenal.[1]
From its closest relatives, the cucumber moth is most reliably distinguished by microscopic examination of the genitals. In the male, the clasper's harpe is twice as long as it is wide, with the costa and sacculus running almost in parallel and being strongly sclerotized, and a rounded cucullus. From the center of the harpe, which is otherwise only weakly sclerotized, a thin spine extends. The uncus is covered in bristles and ends in a small tube; it is a bit longer than the tegumen which in turn is about as wide as it is long. The vinculum is almost quadratic, and the anellus forms a small triangular plate which is more strongly sclerotized. The aedeagus is almost straight, strongly sclerotized below, and has a flattened curved process at end.[1]
In the female genitals, the ostium is transverse and oval, and the antrum broadly sclerotized. The ductus seminalis insert from above, a bit before the forward edge of the antrum. The bursa copulatrix is long and slim, with the forward third particularly narrow; its wall is covered with many short spines, and the hind end almost seamlessly merges into a short and barely distinguishable ductus bursae.[1]
As implied by the common names, the caterpillarlarvae of this moth are frequent agricultural pests. The species is perhaps most noticeable as a pest of cucumbers, but this seems more due to the widespread production of these than to the moth's preferences; D. indica is quite polyphagous and prefers other Cucurbitoideae (which are not as widely grown though) as cucumbers. Typically, the leaves of the food plants are eaten.[1]
Despite its characteristic appearance, the cucumber moth was described as a new species several times, leading to a number of junior synonyms. Achille Guenée described the species three times alone – two times of which on the very same page of the Histoire naturelle des Insectes–, using specimens from far-flung regions he believed to represent different taxa: from Java (for P. gazorialis), Réunion (for his Phakellura curcubitalis), and (presumably) the Levant (for P. zygaenalis). Actually, the moth's populations at the latter two locations, as well as the specimens from Limpopo and Orange Rivers from which Philipp Christoph Zeller described his Eudioptis capensis, seem to have been merely introduced there as pests in ships' stores.[1]
In 1859, the cucumber moth was moved to genus Phakellura by Francis Walker, and to Glyphodes by Edward Meyrick in 1895. It was placed in Margaronia by Thomas Bainbrigge Fletcher in 1917, and by subsequent authors variously assigned it to Diaphania and Glyphodes, at that time incorrectly believed to be subgenera of Margaronia. Finally, in 1931 Hudson, recognizing that Saunders and Walker were quite correct in their original assessments, but that Eudioptis and Phakellura were junior synonyms of Diaphania, placed the moth in its current genus. Shin et al. in 1983 sided with Fletcher and proposed to move the species to Palpita (the senior synonym of Margaronia), but subsequent authors have generally preferred Hudson's treatment.[1]
"Botys hyalinalis" and "Margaronia hyalinata" refer to the cucumber moth, but they are based on misidentification of this species as melonworm moth (D. hyalinata).
↑ Clarke (1986), and see references in Savela (2011)
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References
Clarke, John Frederick Gates (1986): Pyralidae and Microlepidoptera of the Marquesas Archipelago. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology416: 1-485. PDF fulltextArchived 2012-03-27 at the Wayback Machine (214 MB!)
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