Dysschema palmeri Druce
Description. Larva slender; head uniformly shiny black; body ground color velvety black, dark purple at intersegmental areas, body bearing dorsal, spiracular, and subspiracular broken lines of bright white dashes from T3 to A8, T3 with a wide, bright crimson stripe,
broken mid-dorsally and extending to spiracular area, A8 with crimson spot around spiracular verrucae extending slightly dorsally to subdorsal area; spiracles small and black; body with sparse, mid-length, fairly stiff, black setae, each segment also bearing a few long, slightly plumose, soft white setae and sparse, short, stiff white, nonplumose setae laterally, spiracular and subspiracular verrucae from T3 to A8 bright crimson, dorsal verrucae on A8 dark red, all others black; thoracic legs, prolegs, and pads black.
Common name for caterpillar morphospecies:
“Fiesta Pericopinae”
“Arctiid rayas blancas puntos naranjas a los lados del cuerpo”
“Red and black dress”
Natural History. The larvae of this species are solitary feeders.
Caterpillars were collected in Napo Province, Ecuador (Yanayacu Biological Station and Center for Creative Studies: at various sites).
Type Localities of Dysschema palmeri Druce are:
male syntype: San Antonio, 5,800feet, western Colombia;
female syntype: Puzuzo, eastern Peru.
Caterpillars of this species have been reared at Yanayacu Biological Station (Napo, Ecuador).
The most common host plants are Critoniopsis occidentalis Cuatrecasas and Vernonanthura patens (Asteraceae)
Additional hosts include:
Schefflera dielssi Hams, Oreopanax sp, (Araliaceae)
Dendrophorbium lloense Jeffrey (Asteraceae)
Alloplectus tetragonoides Mansfeld, Allopectus sp, Columnea ericae, Gasteranthus cacarathus (Gesneriaceae)
Chusquea scandens (Poaceae)
Smilax tomentosa (Smilacaea)
N=48 rearings as of 2012, 15 eclosed, 32 died
Reared YBS vouchers #: 1438,1458,1459,13577,23385,24865,24981,25017,26019,30445,30446,35887,38914,39148,39409,39963,40871,41380,41381,41382,41383,41384,41385,41386,41486,41487,41488,41489,41490,41491,41492,41493,41494,41495,41496,41497,41498,41499,41500,41501,41502,41785,41889,43706,45296,50346,52271,56616
Reared adult specimens with voucher numbers in “bold” are deposited @ AMNH.
Voucher number 13577 is located at UNR.
Identification of reared adults:
The following was dissected by S. Rab Green:
Reared ♂ # 30445 located @ AMNH, genitalia slide SRG #135
Location: Ecuador, Napo, Yanayacu Biological Station (YY), S 00º35.9’ W77 º53.4, 2200m.
Status: Compared with type collection @ BMNH, collections @ AMNH and USNM. No previous dissections by authors or subsequent taxonomists.
Adults are sexually dimorphic.
Original description: Druce, H. 1910. Descriptions of some new species of Heterocera from E. & W. Africa and tropical S. America. Annals and Magazine of Natural History (8)6: 171.
Reference: Rab Green, S.B., G.L. Gentry, H.F. Greeney, L.A. Dyer. 2011 Ecology, Natural History, and Larval Descriptions of Arctiinae (Lepidoptera: Noctuoidea: Erebidae) from a Cloud Forest in the Eastern Andes of Ecuador. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 104(6):1135-1148.