Gamia buchholzi Plötz, 1879

Cock, Matthew J. W., Congdon, T. Colin E. & Collins, Steve C., 2015, Observations on the Biology of Afrotropical Hesperiidae (Lepidoptera). Part 8. Hesperiinae incertae sedis: Dracaena Feeders, Zootaxa 3985 (3), pp. 301-348 : 306-307

Gamia buchholzi Plötz, 1879

Originally described in the genus Hesperia from a single female collected at Aburi, Ghana, by Professor R Buchholz ( Plötz 1879), this species is recorded from Sierra Leone to western Kenya, but is generally scarce ( Larsen 2005). The adults have been found in deep forest shade ( Congdon & Collins 1998), and perch by day on tree trunks at about 1.5m; they do not appear to be active normally during the day but on dull days may emerge from the forest to feed on flowers ( Larsen 2005). These reports suggest that this species is normally active at dusk and perhaps dawn, as may well be the case for most or all Gamia and Artitropa spp.

Food plants. Van Someren (1974) gives the food plants as Raphia mombuttorum (?), R. farinifera , Borassus aethiopum and Phoenix reclinata (Arecaceae) , and these records are repeated by Sevastopulo (1975), Larsen (1991) and Ackery et al. (1995). However, SCC (in Congdon & Collins 1998) discovered that the food plants are Dracaena spp. and Larsen (2005) quotes SCC that Gamia spp. feed exclusively on Dracaena spp. In Côte d’Ivoire, Vuattoux (1999) reared this species from D. arborea .

Life history. SCC (in Congdon & Collins 1998) reared this species from caterpillars on Dracaena camerooniana in Cameroon (Ebogo), Ghana (Aburi), Nigeria (Obudu), and Côte d’Ivoire (Lamto), and found but failed to rear caterpillars on D. fragrans in Kakamega Forest, western Kenya. The following account is based on his material and observations. The head of the final instar caterpillar (Figure 3.1–2) is yellow-brown, with a large black spot on the centre of the face, extending over the adfrontals and frons, and a smaller dorsoposterior spot; the pronotum is black, with a white gap dorsally; body grey, paler ventrally; posterior segments pale with a dark triangle dorsally. The pupa (Figure 3.3–4) is 33–37mm long, pale, with some sutures slightly darker; it and the shelter are covered with white waxy powder; the proboscis projects 10–26mm beyond the tip of the cremaster. The shelter is made by rolling the leaf edge, and has a brown silken wall across the anterior end. The pupa is similar to those shown below for G. shelleyi (Figure 4.7–9).

In the BMNH Dry Early Stages collection, there is an emerged pupa (no. 6177) collected by W.A. Lamborn in 1911, 70 miles east of Lagos, but with no indication of the food plant. The shelter and cast caterpillar skin are covered with white waxy powder, but not the pupa. The shelter is probably part of a Dracaena sp. leaf, but the cut portion could easily be mistaken for a palm, which could be the origin of the belief that Gamia spp. feed on palms.