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
Young Member
Rapala dieneces?
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