Help identify day-flying moth, NE US

Doug Yanega dyanega at mono.icb.ufmg.br
Tue Sep 16 16:53:03 EDT 1997


>Main coloration is a rich velvety black with iridescent blue or green
>tinges on the wings and antennae.  The forward half of the rear wings
>is pearl/cream colored, with the color demarcation a straight line
>from base to tip.  Upper side of abdomen in velvety iridescent
>black/green, with small (<1mm) iridescent blue spots on either side
>of the 1st (?) abdominal segment.  The first few segments of the
>abdomen underside are bright white.  Forewing shape is similar to
>Cisseps fulvicollis, rear wing shape like Harrisina americana.  This
>bug is not pictured (at least I couldn't find it) in Covell or Holland.
>
>Wilmington, MA, USA (12 miles north of Boston), 27 August 1997.

This sounds a *lot* like an Antichloris or related tropical Arctiid
("Ctenuchid"), which makes NO sense whatsoever in Boston, unless it came in
on bananas or something (as suggested by another posting here recently
about a cocoon found in a bunch of bananas which might have been an
Antichloris). The hindwing description is the thing that makes it sound
like that genus, rather than something like a Macrocneme - and it sure
doesn't match any of the Arctiids or Zygaenids I know of from the US.

Peace,

Doug Yanega    Depto. de Biologia Geral, Instituto de Ciencias Biologicas,
Univ. Fed. de Minas Gerais, Cx.P. 486, 30.161-970 Belo Horizonte, MG   BRAZIL
phone: 031-448-1223, fax: 031-44-5481  (from U.S., prefix 011-55)
                  http://www.icb.ufmg.br/~dyanega/
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82




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