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Photo#958779
orange moth - Anisota senatoria

orange moth - Anisota senatoria
hoschton, jackson County, Georgia, USA
July 16, 2014

Moved
Moved from Anisota.

 
Ansisota senatoria
According to the lepidopterists I've spoken to, A. senatoria doesn't occur in Georgia, only A. peigleri. They say it's southern range ends somewhere around the southern border of Kentucky and Virginia. James Adams is one of the sources if you would like to confirm.

 
Hard to say
We have some conflicting data, so it's hard to say. We do have positively identified senatoria in GA (several DNA sequenced), so I'm hesitant to say that it simply doesn't occur in GA. For this specimen, the following 2 factors would put weight on the scale for senatoria:

a) It's a bit too early for peigleri.
b) It's in the Piedmont region, which is really the most southern region in GA that it's been confirmed.

Now I believe Dave Wagner has said peigleri replaces senatoria south of NC, but there's a good possibility that these upper GA Piedmont specimens are in an overlap zone, part of a bleed-over of the southern NC population. It's also possible (though I don't know how probable) that all the GA senatoria identified specimens, including those sequenced, are erroneous IDs. I have my doubts that that's the case, but it's not impossible. It's been quite a few years since I tackled this genus, but that's at least the rationale behind the current placement.

id
thank you

Moved
Moved from ID Request.

Seems rather late for Anisota virginiensis, though certainly not impossible. Also, this image is not the clearest so I cannot rule out A. peigleri/A. senatoria.

 
Not too late in this region.
I had them into August here in North Florida, and there are late summer posts from Georgia and Alabama. Anyway, it's definitely a male, judging by the transparent forewing patches.

 
Anisota
You are certainly correct on both accounts. I should have looked at BugGuide's other accounts. Generally speaking, A. virginiensis is much earlier than other Anisota sp. in the Northeast.. and I was taking that into account seeing as this was NW Georgia.. where I've always considered A. virginiensis to show up well before A. senatoria/ peigleri, however, there are plenty of other late A. virginiensis records from the same area here on BugGuide, and after consulting my copy of Tuskes et al., I see that A. virginiensis is multi-brooded in this region, something I hadn't considered (though I would have expected from North Florida) from the lower Appalachian region of GA.

resembles
Pink-striped Oakworm Moth



but I'm not an expert

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