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Photo#118924
Micro Moth - Adela septentrionella - Adela septentrionella - male

Micro Moth - Adela septentrionella - Adela septentrionella - Male
Port Orchard, WA, Kitsap County, Washington, USA
June 17, 2007
Size: .25 inch (1.5" antenna)
This guy's antenna is many times longer than his entire body length. Looks very similar to this one:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/119616/bgimage

Moved
Moved from Adela.

Kevin, I think you're correct in thinking this A. septentrionella. Powell(1) states of that species:

"Collections from northern Washington and British Columbia show a high proportion of specimens with reduced white markings, often the forewings are essentially immaculate black"
A. trigrapha also occurs in WA and can have it's three white bands patchily reduced. Nevertheless, the following seem to point more towards A. septentrionella:

    1) the pairs of small white spots on top and bottom where the single 3rd band would be in trigrapha;
    2) the (barely discernible) intermediate size of the eye; and
    3) and very long projecting black scales ("hairs") on the head.

Moved
Moved from Moths.

I think you're right but I don't know how to eliminate similar species in the genus.

Your image is not bad but, if you lighten and sharpen it a bit, it would be helpful. A lot of photo editors allow the user to lighten just the shadows. I downloaded your full res image and did just that and was able to see a lot more detail.

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