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Photo#39535
Alfalfa Webworm - Loxostege cereralis

Alfalfa Webworm - Loxostege cereralis
Hidden Corners Sanctuary, Town of Bailey's Harbor, Door County, Wisconsin, USA
August 21, 1999
This individual came to night light. This species can be an economic pest. Alfalfa, carrots, celery, field corn and sugarbeets are among its food plants.

Is it just me
or does it not seem odd that we have 1 specimen with 2 common names (not odd) but 2 scientific names? Is one scientific name a synonym? If so, which name is currently accepted? If not, then dump the incorrect name and call this beast cerealis.

 
no synonyms
listed at All-Leps, which spells the specific epithet "cereralis" - as do most other sites on the web. I think "cerealis" is just a misspelling found at a few sites, so I changed it to cereralis on the BugGuide species page.

 
5017 Alfalfa Webworm
Janice J. Stiefel...According to Checklist of the Lepidoptera of America North of Mexico by Hodges, page 71..5017 is Loxostege cerealis, 5004 is L. stricticalis. L. cerealis was identified by one of our Wisconsin moth experts, Les Ferge, in 1999.

 
Moved to new guide page
Moved to new guide page

 
It really is a great photo.

 
Thanks, Tony, for catching this
We've moved it. While you're checking things, can you comment on 30162 (1) also?

Wow,
quite a beautiful pest, nice shot.

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