Malacosoma? - Malacosoma disstria

Moved

Moved from Tent Caterpillar and Lappet Moths.

… A. Hendrickson, 6 August, 2015 - 5:59pm

From the info pages

"Malacosoma disstria forewing has dark AM and PM lines". M. americana has "forewing with white AM and PM lines".
This should then be disstria

… john and jane balaban, 6 August, 2015 - 10:15am

Thanks, Ann. Are you talking about your image

? I thought mine looked like a different species from yours.

… John Schneider, 31 July, 2015 - 12:28pm

Yes. On May 1, 2015 in Schulenburg I had three differently colored fresh Malacosomias. One of them was dark just like mine from the gathering. At that time I studied and studied them deciding that in areas where they overlap there is NO way to tell the two apart. My guess was that the Schulenburg specimens were all the same species and probably M. disstria even though the one with the dark strip median area looked more like M. Americana to me. So I would be surprised if one from each species showed up in a similar time frame.

Additionally, they are rather a generalist in host plants, but we DID see a lot of Basswood which is one of the specific hosts listed for M. disstria

… A. Hendrickson, 31 July, 2015 - 3:41pm

Yes, but I don't know which one and I think I like my photograph better.

… A. Hendrickson, 31 July, 2015 - 9:12am