Hi Dr Seow and Aaron, I encountered a group of (at least 5) dogfighting male Rapala yesterday. I assumed all were R. dieneces. They were ocherous underneath. These are the ones I tracked successfully.. Most of these shots are heavily cropped.
#1
#2
#3 (no underside, unfortunately - but I noticed space 7 of the hindwing is not dark shaded but rather bright orange)
Wonderful! You have confirmed the existence of Rapala damona in Singapore.
As you can see the underside is easily confused with that of Rapala suuffusa ,while the upperside is very similar to R. dieneces.
Rapala damona; Upperside orange -red. HW space 5, 6, & 7 red ie HW red except for a small central black area.
Note the last 3 (Post 1) shots show the right HW thru the torn FW . What appears to be a black bar on the HW is the lower part of the FW; the HW is mostly red except for the dark HW cell.
Underside deep ochreous ie deeper tawny brown than the other two.
FW postdiscal band strongly bent as in R. suffusa.
HW orange often with a thin black defining line . http://yutaka.it-n.jp/lyc4/83870001.html
What an amazing and timely discovery(just in time for xmas)
#1 is definitely damona as both the dorsal and ventral(ground colour and shape of post-discal band) are typical of damona . So are #3 and #4.
#2 looks different from the rest and is most likely dieneces from the less darkened veins on the dorsal hindwing(although this seems inconsistent) and the more yellowish ground colour and more scalloped post-discal band on the ventral surface.
I think this sequence shows the differences between these two similar spp. very nicely and will be very useful for spotting more damona in the future.
There is one more very rare species, Rapala cowani, whose type locality is Singapore but it's most likely extinct now, even though there is a very slim chance that it's still lurking in the mangroves.
I was actually shown Rapala cowani taken in Chek Jawa , Pulau Ubin, so its existence is not in doubt.
There are probably other species in Singapore.
Of interest is this labelled as R. dieneces. http://www.butterflycircle.com/check...0Ben%20Jin.jpg
The fairly straight postdiscal band (slanted) in HW space 1b indicates either iarbus or manea.
The broken forewing is actually useful in this case to show the upperside on the hindwing up to space 7. Otherwise it would have been quite challenging to separate this fella from the R. dieneces
Fleming said of R.damona..
Male darker shade of brown, almost purplish than suffusa & dieneces. Underwside FW note postdiscal band curved in at upper end. Underside HW orange area over tornal spot well marked.
Note in all of Jonathan's examples the orange is rather vague & not well marked with the black line.
Your individual is rather worn & the colour faded, but it does seem to have that sort of general colouration.
The FW band is a little too straight though.
I would leave it as dieneces for the momemt.
I notice that in many examples of damona that the post-discal band beside the blue tornal spot on the hindwing is slightly less curved or protruding than in dieneces. Based on this, and other features Dr Seow has mentioned in the preceding posts, one can rather confidently say that the one in post #10 is also damona. (Again, this method of distinguishing them may seem contentious)
I still find that the most reliable character in damona is that the individual striae which make up the post-discal band are much straighter than the scalloped ones in dieneces (compare Jonathan's with Horace's)
I'm ignoring the dorsals as the differences are obvious but also because i feel that most of us would rarely have the luxury of getting a good view of dorsals in the field and so, while most differences are in the dorsals, we should aim to find differences in the more frequently observed ventrals as that would be far more useful in practice.
Young Member
Rapala dieneces?
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