Sphingonotus (Sphingonotus) balteatus

Sphingonotus (S.) balteatus (Serville, 1838) Fig. 88 References for Socotra. Burr 1903: 412, 424 [as Sphingonotus savignyi]; Uvarov (in Uvarov and Popov (1957)): 376 [as S. savignyi]. Diagnostic notes. Sphingonotus (S.) balteatus is a large species with unmistakably coloured hind wings: basally violet or purple with an extensive black fascia and a hyaline apex (Fig. 88). Distribution and occurrence. Sphingonotus balteatus is found in Egypt and Somalia, eastwards, through Arabia, into Pakistan and India (Husemann 2020). Burr (1903) mentioned a specimen of S. savignyi collected by the Forbes expedition on Abd el Kuri on 5 December 1898. Uvarov (in Uvarov and Popov (1957)) was unable to trace that specimen in the London and the Liverpool collections and expected Burr to have been misled by a dark specimen of S. albipennis. We found one specimen of Sphingonotus (Sphingonotus) balteatus between congeners in a drawer in the NHMUK, labelled as savigny bearing the label “ Sokotra 1900-234 ” (Fig. 88). This label indicates it was collected during Forbes’ expedition to Socotra and Abd el Kuri in 1889 and 1899 and it does not mean the specimen was collected on Socotra itself. We conclude this must be the specimen collected by Forbes and Ogilivie-Grant on Abd el Kuri, mentioned by Burr (1903). Since S. balteatus differs markedly from S. savignyi, we cannot explain Burr’s misidentification. In the Socotra Archipelago, it has only been found once on Abd el Kuri Is. (Fig. 89). Since the specimen was collected on 5 Dec 1898, the day the party went up Jebel Saleh (Forbes 1903), it is assumed that the collecting site is the same as that of S. albipennis collected that day (see species account S. albipennis). Habitat and biology. The habitat on Abd el Kuri is expected to be the same as that of S. albipennis. Bioacoustics. Members of the Oedipodinae subfamily are known to emit quiet, buzzing sounds during rivalry, courtship and flight (Roesti and Keist 2009). The sound of this species is unknown.