Notes on N. decemmaculatus and N. travancorensis

Notomulciber decemmaculatus was described by Breuning (1942) based on a single specimen from the erstwhile princely state of Travancore comprising the present day central and south Kerala and Kanyakumari District in Tamil Nadu. There is no recent record of this species except for Nair et al. (1986), who reported it as a leaf feeder on Lagerstroemia microcarpa Wight (Lythraceae). Lingafelter et al. (2014) published photos of the holotype deposited in the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian) Washington, D.C., United States. In the original description, Breuning (1942) mentions the presence of a short whitish band in the middle of the pronotal base. However, such band is not discernible on the photograph of the holotype.

Notomulciber travancorensis was also described by Breuning (1958) based on a single specimen from Travancore. He provided a very brief description in French, which is translated verbatim as: “ Very close to decemmaculatus Breun., which shares the locality and which could form a morph, but the marginal angle of the elytral apex only slightly prominent and rounded (not stretched into lobe) and different ornamentation. Pronotum without whitish basal band. On each elytron, only four white circular spots: a small post-humeral, sublateral; a slightly larger sublateral postmedian; a very small just behind the second in the middle of the disc and a small lateral at the beginning of the apical quarter ”. However, the species was not illustrated in the original description. Photographs of the holotype (Figs. 7–9) held in the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN) Paris, France are furnished here.