Andy Adcock
Worst person on Birdforum
That Periopta is obscene!!!!!
-
Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.
Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
Australian Moths and other garden observations (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Atropos
- Start date
Three species of Oenochromacame to the sheet a couple of nights ago.
Oenochroma infantilis - by far the most common Oenochroma that I catch, on a good night well over 100 can appear on the sheet.
Oenochroma decolorata - a regular visitor with 10+ records a year
Oenochroma polyspila - only the fifth time I have caught this species
Oenochroma infantilis - by far the most common Oenochroma that I catch, on a good night well over 100 can appear on the sheet.
Oenochroma decolorata - a regular visitor with 10+ records a year
Oenochroma polyspila - only the fifth time I have caught this species
Attachments
It is a real stunner
After several months of searching I think I have finally sorted out what this rather attractive Gelechiidae is. I have caught it on several occasions since moving to Weipa and now think that it is an undescribed species of Hypatima known as Hypatima ANIC17 (Gelechiidae, Anacampsinae) on BOLD.
Attachments
Another fantastic if very very hot night in the bush last night. Whenever possible I do like to go trapping with another person especially when the conditions are good as often it is too busy for one person to process everything as was the case last night except due to a wardrobe malfunction I spent the majority of the session wandering around the bush in my boxers as my shorts ripped badly when squatting to take a photo! Ended up with probably 1000-1500 moths of over 120+ species (still processing the 350+ pictures I took). Here are a few Crambidae highlights and a single Psychidae
Boeotarcha divisa (Crambidae, Odontiinae) - my first for Weipa, have previously caught this on TI
Eugauria ANIC3 (Crambidae, Musotiimae) - A new species for me and from what I can find the first record for the Cape
Nausinoe perspectata (Crambidae, Spilomelinae) - a scarce species that only seems to come out in the Wet
Pachynoa xanthochyta (Crambidae, Spilomelinae) - my first record since 2018 and as far as I can tell the first recent record for the Cape
Eumeta variegata (Psychidae) - a scarce but annual visitor during the Wet, probably get 2-3 a year
Boeotarcha divisa (Crambidae, Odontiinae) - my first for Weipa, have previously caught this on TI
Eugauria ANIC3 (Crambidae, Musotiimae) - A new species for me and from what I can find the first record for the Cape
Nausinoe perspectata (Crambidae, Spilomelinae) - a scarce species that only seems to come out in the Wet
Pachynoa xanthochyta (Crambidae, Spilomelinae) - my first record since 2018 and as far as I can tell the first recent record for the Cape
Eumeta variegata (Psychidae) - a scarce but annual visitor during the Wet, probably get 2-3 a year
Attachments
JWN Andrewes
Poor Judge of Pasta.
Those numbers are ridiculous! How do you find time to do anything else at all?!
I struggle and have a massive backlog both of unidentified photos (probably 35000+ still waiting to be processed) and of putting notes into my own database (I use a piece of commercial software called Bird Journal that I have written my own checklist for) and then eventually upload everything onto iNat (now got into the routine of uploading each day when I put it into my database but still have a backlog of 000s of photos to upload). On top of that am in the process of writing / developing a web resource for the moths of FNQ and the Cape. Last night was by no means the busiest - can routinely get over 250 species a night in the Wet in decent conditions and have had well over 15000 moths on the sheet in the past.
I am very lucky in that I have a massively understanding wife who is one of the senior midwives covering the Cape so I only work part time at the moment. It keeps me off the street as they say!
Should also add have only got a handful of trapping sessions where everything is identified sometimes I am struggling to ID 75% of the catch
Last edited:
I have now finished my initial processing of the photos from Friday night and the tally currently sits at 170 species with 40+ left to go so will end up asmy first 200+ night for this Wet season.
This is a selection of Geometrinae from the night
Agathia ANIC2 - a known undescribed species whose range is restricted to the top of th eCape. This is a regular if scarce visitor to my sheet with up to ten records a year
Alloeopage cinerea - my first record for several years and my first for the Cape
Argyrocosma argosticta - an occasional visitor to the sheet
Chrysochloroma megaloptera - a regular visitor sometimes 3-4 turn up in a night
Comostola iodioides - a scarce visitor to the sheet
Epipristis oxyodonta - a species I have only ever seen on the Cape. Turns up regularly on the sheet
Hypodoxa emilaria - a regular visitor and one that I have seen in several locations.
Metallochlora ametalla - a species that I have over looked or misidentified in the past, seems to be quite common on the Cape
This is a selection of Geometrinae from the night
Agathia ANIC2 - a known undescribed species whose range is restricted to the top of th eCape. This is a regular if scarce visitor to my sheet with up to ten records a year
Alloeopage cinerea - my first record for several years and my first for the Cape
Argyrocosma argosticta - an occasional visitor to the sheet
Chrysochloroma megaloptera - a regular visitor sometimes 3-4 turn up in a night
Comostola iodioides - a scarce visitor to the sheet
Epipristis oxyodonta - a species I have only ever seen on the Cape. Turns up regularly on the sheet
Hypodoxa emilaria - a regular visitor and one that I have seen in several locations.
Metallochlora ametalla - a species that I have over looked or misidentified in the past, seems to be quite common on the Cape
Attachments
Last edited:
Alan henry
Well-known member
Just found your posts. Moved to WA in March and work 15 km inland from Dongara in WA's MW. Found a few moths around the work site in the mornings, Any chance you could ID for me?
Morning Alan, the fauna of WA is markedly different to mine and I have never trapped there but these are my thoughts - in order they appeared in your post
Dinophalus species - several undescribed species in Aus would need specimen and probably dissection for me to go further as have only caught a handful of out of range specimens of this genus (they don't occur any closer than Brisbane to me)
Female Cyclophora / Perixera - would need specimen as not one I recognise
Prasinocyma rhodocosma
Cymatoplex halcyone
Sceliodes cordalis
Oenochrominae of some description - looks similar to some Taxeotis species
Endoxyla coscinophanes
Casbia - in Qld would say Casbia rectaria but that is not meant to occur in WA and they are a variable and nightmare genus so not sure
Cleora injectaria
Alan henry
Well-known member
My internet connection has decided to throw a major hissy fit this week and we can barely get on line at the moment sadly hence the lack of posts! We have had some decent storms at last and Weipa is now effectively cut off with 2m of water over the road at the first major river crossing this morning, this will fluctuate now till April with it being drivable at times but at others most definitely not - peaked last Wet season at 12m over the road at this crossing! With the right vehicle you can safely drive through 0.6m but anything over that not worth the risk.
As the rain has started some of the Wet season species are appearing. Both the species of Aloa (Erebidae, Arctinae) that I catch have turned up on the sheet the last three nights.
Aloa marginata and Aloa costalis. Sadly not managed to get a photo of costalis in flight yet so have not get a shot of its hindwing but I shall keep trying!
As the rain has started some of the Wet season species are appearing. Both the species of Aloa (Erebidae, Arctinae) that I catch have turned up on the sheet the last three nights.
Aloa marginata and Aloa costalis. Sadly not managed to get a photo of costalis in flight yet so have not get a shot of its hindwing but I shall keep trying!
Attachments
Discretion turned out to be the order of the day tonight. It was shaping up to be possibly the best night of the year when the storm cell that on the radar was moving through quite quickly and was not dropping much rain stalled and with lightening striking the trees around me, the rain coming down ridiculously hard and the generator in danger of being flooded I packed up. The last few photos were taken with my phone as there was no way I was bringing the big camera out of the car so my apologies for the quality of the photo but this was possibly the star of the night Fascellina sp. A (Geometridae, Ennominae). This is the first record for the west coast of the Cape and the first recent record away from Iron Ranges as far as I can tell.
Attachments
Male Gnathothlibus australiensis (Sphingidae) showing the bare tarsus and tibia that are diagnostic for this species - sadly only males of the two Australian species of Gnathothlibus are identifiable to species by external characteristics, the females require DNA / dissection to determine which is which.
Attachments
There is a moth-er in the US whom I follow on Facebook, he keeps a running tally of how many species he records in his area each calendar year. I never used to "list" in this manner but over the last few years I have and whenever he posts an update for his tally he asks us to comment with our running total. This year with only Jan / Feb and 6 days trapping in Kutini-Payamu on my database I am a handful short of 1000 and hope to get close to 1200, but there are large chunks of the year that for various reasons I was not able to trap. In February as my family were in lockdown as everyone bar myself were seriously ill with Covid, I could only trap in my garden and I have just finished inputting the data for the species I have identified so far (there are still close to 1000 photos to be ID'd) and the total so far stands at 412, which is just 50 shy of my US friends year tally! My house list for the 16 months we have lived here (and all data from 1st March onwards yet to be inputted) stands at 710
My apologies if I have posted these before but I am very slowly catching up on my database entry and these two from the garden in March this year caught my eyes...
Metopiora sanguinata (Noctuidae, Noctuinae) - a scarce visitor to the garden. Occurs on the eastern seaboard of Australia from Torres Strait to New South Wales. There is one historic record from Darwin in 1904.
Ramadasa crystallina (Erebidae, Erebinae) - the vast majority of records are from the top third of the Cape but there is a single record from Groote.
Metopiora sanguinata (Noctuidae, Noctuinae) - a scarce visitor to the garden. Occurs on the eastern seaboard of Australia from Torres Strait to New South Wales. There is one historic record from Darwin in 1904.
Ramadasa crystallina (Erebidae, Erebinae) - the vast majority of records are from the top third of the Cape but there is a single record from Groote.
Attachments
I am slowly working through some of my many unidentified photos from earlier this year and have come across this. Looking at Schmidt 2012 this is Chrysocraspeda eumeles (Geometridae, Sterrhinae) which is only known from a handful of specimens taken on Cape York pre WW2. This is, as far as I can tell, the first photo of a live specimen and aside from the specimen in Schmidt's paper that was also published on the ButterflyHouse webpage only the second published image.
