Urania spp. - Range in Caribbean - US

Mike Quinn Mike.Quinn at tpwd.state.tx.us
Fri Sep 2 21:13:56 EDT 2005


Hugh,

The fact that U. leilus traveled Guadeloupe, some ~500 miles north of
it's food plant on Trinidad is interesting given that it was mostly over
open water (though possibly human assisted).

Photo of *Urania leilus* on Guadeloupe
http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/4499/papillonx8an.jpg

Caribbean map:
http://go.hrw.com/atlas/norm_map/caribean.gif

-------------------------------------------------

However, note that Hugh Avery Freeman collected two U. fulgens in Dallas
in 1941. This is some 1000 miles (!) north of the nearest patch of
Urania host plant.

Also, I saved the following text from a now defunct website discussing
records that biologists were seeing during a study of migrant animals
occurring on off-shore oil rigs. (Platform location? Author?)

--------------------------------------------------

MIGRATION OVER THE GULF
August 29-September 18 [1998]

September 11 saw the simultaneous arrivals of Black-throated Blue
Warblers at the Vermilion and South Marsh Island platforms.  These birds
coincided with arrivals of numerous Black Witches (Ascalapha odorata),
as well as a tropical day-flying moth (Urania leilus) and several other
unidentified insects that appeared to be tropical.  The species
composition of bird and insect arrivals suggested a possible West Indian
origin for the migrants. The synoptic weather situation on the morning
of Sept 11 (see map below) indicated a corridor of strongly convergent
winds from the southern tip of Florida northwestward into our study
area.  We suspect that these birds and bugs flew downwind from the West
Indian region during the night of Sept 10-11, and subsequently were
grounded on our platforms by the deteriorating weather associated with
the northeastern quadrant of Tropical Storm Frances.

Very little has been happening on the butterfly front. One painted lady
and one American snout were observed during the period, and one Monarch
was found dead. We remain skeptical of published reports that Monarchs
are trans-Gulf migrants.

Large nocturnal moth migrations are now regular occurrences. Noctuids
and Sphingids are the principal groups involved, but identification of
species will await detailed examination of scavenged specimens.

-------------------------------------------------

I assume that the oil rig specimen was properly ID'ed as Urania
leilus...

However, Roy Kendall has in his collection a worn male specimen of
Urania fulgens collected in the panhandle of Florida in 1973:

FL: Okaloosa Co.
Ft Walton Beach
9 September 1973
V.J. Farkas

map: http://tinyurl.com/e464u

This location, like Dallas, is some 1000 miles distant from southern
Veracruz where the Urania host, Omphalea grows...

So basically, these moths sure can move!!!

If you're interested, I've linked the on-line Urania papers I've found
here:

http://www.naba.org/chapters/nabast/Urania.html#Bib

Mike Quinn, Austin

_________________     
Texas Entomology    
www.TexasEnto.net



 
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