''Spirama indenta'' is a species of

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of ...

of the family Erebidae first described by

George Hampson Sir George Francis Hampson, 10th Baronet (14 January 1860 – 15 October 1936) was an English entomologist. Hampson studied at Charterhouse School and Exeter College, Oxford. He travelled to India to become a tea-planter in the Nilgiri Hills ...

in 1891. It is found from the Indian states of

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

and

Meghalaya Meghalaya (, or , meaning "abode of clouds"; from Sanskrit , "cloud" + , "abode") is a state in northeastern India. Meghalaya was formed on 21 January 1972 by carving out two districts from the state of Assam: (a) the United Khasi Hills and Jai ...

and from

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

in Indonesia. In older texts, the species was classified as a morph of ''

Spirama retorta ''Spirama retorta'', the Indian owlet-moth, is a moth of the family Erebidae. The species was first described by Carl Alexander Clerck in 1764. It is found in China (Tibet, Qinghai, Jiangsu, Fukien, Yunnan), Korea, Japan (Honshu), India (Sikkim ...

''.

Description

The pattern on the wings looks like the face of a snake with slightly opened mouth. Forewings with arched costa towards nearly rectangular apex. Male with a fold on inner area of hindwings, containing an erectile ridge of very long hair. Antennae fasciculate (bundled). Male has a chestnut-brown head and collar. Thorax paler with dark bands. Abdomen crimson with triangular black dorsal patches. Wings fuscous brown. An "inverted comma" mark can be found beyond end of cell, with ochreous and black edges and some white on inner edge of "tail", the centre fuscous black. Markings are not prominent. The stigma reduced in size and with two indentations in its outer edge. Forewings suffused with olive and vinous. Female has ochreous body and non-crenulate sub-marginal line on hindwings.

References

Moths described in 1891 Spirama {{Erebinae-stub