Telicota besta?

[horace2264]

Found this Telicota specimen in the nature reserve.

Dr Seow, any suggestion on its species ID? :)

[Green Imperial]

beautiful shot Horace.

[Psyche]

Yes, it is Telicota besta male.

There is a better contrast between ground colour & the hindwing band.
Overlap between spot 4 & 3 is small . These 2 features ruled out augias.

The difficulty is ruling out linna.
The veins are lightly darkened in besta male but may not be obviously so in some examples, as here.

T. besta is closely related to T. colon & so share some similar features.
Forewing spot 5 is often notched on the side margins.
Spot 4 have the sides sloped upwards (like a pyramid with the upper half cut off.)
In the linna male these 2 spots are more or less rectangular.

TL Seow:cheers:

[horace2264]

beautiful shot Horace.

Thanks, Caijin. :)


Yes, it is Telicota besta male.

Thanks, Dr Seow for the detailed explanation for the ID confirmation. Much appreciated. :)

[Psyche]

The entire line of reasoning is wrong here.

The wingshape & abdomen are typically that of a female.
Normally the female can be confirmed by its whitish abdomen.
This fresh individual's orangey one fooled me.

Happily as far as I can see, the ID is still ccorrect, except the sex, ie besta female.
Lightly darkened veins ruled out linna female; shape of spots ruled out colon female; lack of black tinge ruled out ohara female.
Between the female of augias & besta, the besta female have the ground colour yellower & with a greenish tinge which is just discernable.

The augias female without the greenish tinge to the ground colour.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v297/Federick/USR/Telicotaspp_atUSROct2004.jpg

TL Seow:cheers: