Thanks for your comments.

This is Phoenicoprocta lydia, and has been officially given the 1st US record. Local newspapers will run an article today; and the state parks dept. will run an article throughout Texas on Friday. Maybe it will go national and you can read the article.

Fran

here's some info on I found which indicate observations of " class="bb_url">P. lydia in what appears to be Central America, and southern Mexico.

and a reference to identifications:
Phoenicoprocta lydia (Druce, 1889)
Mexico. See Dycladia lydia Druce, 1889; Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (6) 4: 84, TL: Mexico, Tabasco
Phoenicoprocta lydia ; Hampson, 1898, Cat. Lep. Phalaenae Br. Mus. 1: 198

It looks like we'll be needing a new guide page!

Family Arctiidae, but this will be a tough one--I have photos of a bunch of Subfamily Ctenuchinae members from Mexico, and I've previously scoured Matthew Barnes' pages for photos trying to ID mine. My Mexico photos are the last 8 in the slide show. I see you're in Texas, so you may have similar moths in Texas to those that may be in the northern Caribbean and northern Mexico. Photos online are hard to find.

Yours seems to be possibly somewhere in Cosmosoma, although I'm only comfortable saying it's definitely one of the Arctids. Try Taking a look at the photo of C. festivum on plate 20 in the Moths of Belize collection that Matthew has put online-- it's the closest match I can find.

here's a direct link to Cosmosoma festivum on M. Barne's site.

for that to be Fran's, but it's certainly close!

close, but no cigar, yes? 8;)

I love the wasp moths, they are sooOOooo colorful--but finding resources to make an ID is tough. I suppose it would be slightly easier but just as time consuming if there was a huge museum collection nearby, or a place where I could look through those old books which cataloged many species of moths that are not so easy to locate in an online source. Part of me thinks that someday I'll collect some of the books for myself, but right now I need to put my money elsewhere. I did a search for Seitz's collection from the early 1900's last year and OMG--more than a thousand dollars. Oy! I haven't looked up Hampson yet but figure it to be equally costly and harder to find since it's from the late 1800's.

If anyone reads this has better research ideas, please share!