''Euchromia polymena'' is a species of day flying

moth Moths are a group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not Butterfly, butterflies. They were previously classified as suborder Heterocera, but the group is Paraphyly, paraphyletic with respect to butterflies (s ...

of the subfamily

Arctiinae The Arctiinae (formerly called the family Arctiidae) are a large and diverse subfamily of moths with around 11,000 species found all over the world, including 6,000 neotropical species.Scoble, MJ. (1995). ''The Lepidoptera: Form, Function and D ...

. These moths are vibrantly coloured and look like

wasps A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. Th ...

so known as Wasp mothKrishna Mohan Photography
/ref> or Painted handmaiden moth.Rahul Alvares
/ref> It was described by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

in his 1758 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae''. It is found in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

and south-eastern Asia, as well as on

Sumatra Sumatra () is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the list of islands by area, sixth-largest island in the world at 482,286.55 km2 (182,812 mi. ...

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

Sulawesi Sulawesi ( ), also known as Celebes ( ), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the List of islands by area, world's 11th-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Min ...

Peninsular Malaysia Peninsular Malaysia, historically known as Malaya and also known as West Malaysia or the Malaysian Peninsula, is the western part of Malaysia that comprises the southern part of the Malay Peninsula on Mainland Southeast Asia and the list of isla ...

Borneo Borneo () is the List of islands by area, third-largest island in the world, with an area of , and population of 23,053,723 (2020 national censuses). Situated at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, it is one of the Greater Sunda ...

and the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. It is also present in the northern part of

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

and the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

Description

Hindwings have veins 3 and 4 extending from the angle of the cell. The body is black, with a blue spot on the vertex of the head. The frons is white, and the tegulae feature a white spot. The collar and the 1st, 4th, and 5th abdominal segments are crimson, while the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th segments are edged with metallic blue. Forewings have a basal metallic-blue spot and two spots at the end of the cell. They also feature a large sub-basal spot, a bifid medial spot, and a quadrified post-medial orange spot. The hindwing displays trifid basal and quadrified post-medial orange spots. The coxa of the forelegs and three spots on the pectus are white. The larva is reddish with red tubercles. It has long anterior and posterior tufts of hair and shorter dense medial dorsal tufts. Pupa is in a hairy cocoon.

Ecology

The eggs are shiny pale yellow spheres, and laid in groups under a leaf of a food plant. The larvae feed on ''

Ipomoea ''Ipomoea'' () is the largest genus in the plant family Convolvulaceae, with over 600 species. It is a large and diverse group, with common names including morning glory, Ipomoea aquatica, water convolvulus or water spinach, sweet potato, ...

'' species. The caterpillars live in groups until the last

instar An instar (, from the Latin '' īnstar'' 'form, likeness') is a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, which occurs between each moult (''ecdysis'') until sexual maturity is reached. Arthropods must shed the exoskeleton in order to ...

which is solitary. File:Euchromia polymena mating in Kadavoor.jpg, Mating File:Euchromia polymena.jpg, Laying eggs File:Caterpillar 01Wasp moth (30394141322).jpg, Larva File:PupaWasp moth (30424066931).jpg, Pupa

References

* Moths described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Euchromiina {{Euchromiina-stub