2018 September 11

 

    Two small points about the Black Witches shown in yesterday’s posting.  1.  Libby estimated the wingspan of her Witch to be about seven inches.  Now, before you read on, go to your cupboard or drawer and bring out a ruler and remind yourself of exactly what seven inches looks like.  Once you’ve done that, you’ll see how excited we are over having two Black Witches on the Island.  2.  The two Black Witches shown on yesterday’s posting looked rather different.  Apparently they are sexually dimorphic.  I have added the sex to the caption of each of yesterday’s photographs.    I wonder if “male Black  Witch” is a contradiction in terms. Should it be “Black Warlock”?  And what about a male Painted Lady?  Should that not be a Painted Gentleman?

 

   Now more moth news from Jochen Möhr in Metchosin.

   The first is a pterophorid moth.   It looks a lot like Oidaematophorus mathewianus.  The trouble is that there are lots of pterophorids that also look like this, and, because of the way they hold their wings, they are difficult to identify from photographs.  Our commonest species of this group that we get in Victoria is Emmelina monodactyla.  It may be safest to label this just “pterophorid moth”.

 

Pterophorid moth (Lep.: Pterophoridae)   Jochen Möhr

 

Stenoporpia pulmonaria (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

 

   Two geometrid moths,  Triphosa haesitata and Coryphysta meadii, sometimes look so much alike that we dread being sent photographs of them!  Today we had photographs from Jochen Möhr and from Annie Pang.  Coryphista meadii  occurs in several forms, not all of which look like T. haesitata.  Fortunately, Jochen’s photograph below is one of the forms of  Coryphista meadii that does not resemble Triphosa haesitata and is therefore easy to identify, even though this is a somewhat worn specimen.

 

Coryphista meadii (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

 

   Annie’s is Triphosa haesitata:

 

Triphosa haesitata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Annie Pang