Type species: Smerinthus davidi Oberthür, 1884.
A monotypic genus confined to the central-southern Palaearctic.
IMAGO: Apex of forewing pointed; outer margin sinuate, convex. Frenulum and retinaculum present. Proboscis extending to beyond middle of abdomen. Labial palpus short, not porrect. Pendant scales (lashes) present at upper edge of eye. Male antenna with long seriate setae; female antenna simply cylindrical without lateral grooves or prolonged setae; terminal segment in both sexes short. Transverse head crest between antennae. Tibiae without spines, but foretibia with long apical thorn; hindtibia with two pairs of spurs. Pulvillus small. Paronychium present, but ventral lobe vestigial. Veins Rs and M1 of hindwing stalked; M2 from middle of cell.
Genitalia. In male, valva broadly sole-shaped without friction scales on outer side; apex rounded. Sacculus represented by a small sub-basal, broadly triangular ridge, which bears an obliquely vertical carina. Aedeagus without any special armature, but with apical edge produced on one side. In female, lamellae weakly chitinized with no special armature.
OVUM: Large, oval and yellowish-white.
LARVA: Head tiangular; body cylindrical, green, granulose, with seven yellow oblique lateral stripes. Horn erect and the same colour as the body stripes.
PUPA: Dark mahogany brown, glossy, with a very sharp, pointed cremaster. Very like that of Proserpinus proserpina in shape and colour.
HOSTPLANT FAMILIES: Anacardiaceae.
GB: Pistacia Hawkmoth
Smerinthus davidi Oberthür, 1884, Bull. Soc. ent. Fr. 1884: 12. Type locality: Asia Minor.Holarctic; western Palaearctic region. Pleistocene refuge: Monocentric -- Iranian refuge. Possibly also Syrian refuge.
Wingspan: 60--70mm. A very striking species. Difficult to confuse with any other in the western Palaearctic. Shows little variation in coloration.
Although a local species, it often occurs in large numbers at certain sites in rocky, hilly areas supporting scattered trees and shrubs of Quercus, Olea, Ceratonia and Pistacia. Attracted to light, often in large numbers. Although the adults do not feed, they will drink water if offered (Danner, Eitschberger & Surholt, 1998).
Bivoltine; in Iran, April and late July/August, but across northern Iraq during May/June and August (Wiltshire, 1957). Two specimens were taken at Feke (Adana Province, 37°50'N, 35°53'E, 625m), Turkey, on 21 June 2001 (Feza Doganlar, pers. comm.).
OVUM: Large for the size of moth (1.55 x 1.90mm), oval and whitish-yellow. Laid singly on the underside of the hostplant's leaves (Danner, Eitschberger & Surholt, 1998).
LARVA: Full-fed: 45mm.
On hatching, the black-horned, 6mm-long, whitish larva wanders off to find a leaf under which it spins a silken pad on which to moult. Not until the second instar does normal feeding commence from beneath that leaf. It then becomes greenish-yellow with dark green dorsal stripes. Both body and head are covered with fine tubercles. Over the next two instars the larva becomes bluish-green with white oblique lateral stripes and a rose-colored horn (Danner, Eitschberger & Surholt, 1998).
Two main colour forms are evident in the final instar, namely plain bluish-green and bluish-green with salmon-red patches surrounding the spiracles and another at the base of the last pair of true legs. A pale yellow sub-spiracular line runs from the head to this first salmon patch, and there are seven oblique lateral stripes of the same colour. The cheeks of the triangular head and the horn are also of the same shade of yellow. The false abdominal legs are yellow at thier base, with salmon-red 'socks'. Fully grown it looks similar to that of Mimas tiliae. There is also a much rarer pinkish-brown form
Hostplants. Larvae have been found on Pistacia atlantica and P. palaestina (De Freina & Geck, 2003; Müller et al., 2005a). In captivity most larvae will eat Cotinus coggygria and Rhus coriaria, indicating that these shrubs may be natural hosts in the wild.
PUPA: 30mm. Dark mahogany brown, glossy, with a very sharp, pointed cremaster. Very like that of Proserpinus proserpina. Formed in a loose cocoon among debris on the ground. The overwintering stage.
Tachinidae: Drino (Zygobothria) atropivora (Robineau-Desvoidy).
Recorded sporadically from southern Turkey (Oberthür, 1884; Daniel, 1939; De Freina & Geck, 2003; Feza Doganlar, pers. comm.), northern Syria (De Freina & Geck, 2003), northern Israel (D. Benyamini, pers. comm.; Müller et al., 2005b), western Jordan (Müller et al., 2005a), south-eastern Turkey (De Freina & Geck, 2003), north-eastern Iraq (Wiltshire, 1957), southeastern Georgia (Naumann & Zolotuhin, 2000), northern Iran (Alborz Mountains), eastern Afghanistan (Sarobi) (Ebert, 1969), and Iranian Beluchistan.
A. davidi may also occur (more widely) across Azerbaijan, the Alborz Mountains of northern Iran, the Zagros Mountains of western\southern Iran, and northern Afghanistan, as the vegetation zones in these areas are similar to those where it is found farther west.
This uncommen species is named after the town of Akbez (near Hassa) in Turkey (N.E. of Iskenderun). As much of the original vegetation has been destroyed in this and many other regions farther east, it is possible that A. davidi may have become extinct over much of its former Turkish range. Additionally, as the larvae feed on Pistacia, the extensive cultivation of pesticide-treated groves of P. vera may have contributed to this species decline.
Extra-limital range. None.
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