Discovery of Melittia formosana MATSUMURA (Lepidoptera, Sesiidae) in Amami-Ohshima Island, the Ryukyus

ARITA Yutaka, YATA Naoki

doi:10.18984/lepid.39.4_253

Bibliographic Information

Other Title

Melittia formosana MATSUMURAの奄美大島からの発見
Melittia formosana Matsumuraの奄美大島からの発見〔英文〕
Melittia formosana Matsumura ノアマミオオシマ

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Description

Through the courtesy of Mr. M. OKADA, we had an opportunity to see a photograph in colours of a sesiid moth taken by him in the island of Amami-Ohshima on the 10th of June, 1980. The transparency gave us surprise, because the species on the picture, belonging to the genus Melittia, has not been known to occur in Japan. An illustration from the photograph by him is given in Fig. 1. We made lepidopterous collection trips to the island in 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1987, and it was very fortunate for us that we were able to collect one male and four females of this species. This large blackish male specimen well agrees with the male holotype of Melittia formosana MATSUMURA from Taiwan in the superficial appearance as well as in the genitalia. M. formosana MATSUMURA is redescribed from specimens taken in the island of Amami-Ohshima. We wish to express our gratitude to Mr. M. OKADA, Nagoya Kontyu-kan, Nagoya, for his valuable information on this interesting species, to Dr. S. MORIUTI, University of Osaka Prefecture, for his critical advice and for his kindness in correcting the manuscript, and to Dr. T. KUMATA, Hokkaido University, for the loan of type specimen of M. formosana MATSUMURA preserved in the collection of his institute.

Journal

Lepidoptera Science

Lepidoptera Science 39 (4), 253-258, 1988

THE LEPIDOPTEROLOGICAL SOCIETY OF JAPAN