Backlog of unidentified moth images

Noctuoidea

These specimens should be moved to Noctuoidea:

… Karl Volkman, 31 August, 2009 - 9:48pm

Geometrids/Zale (up to node 200,000)

I'm not really qualified to ID these, but the general body plan on Geometrids is pretty easy to spot. Zale in the Erebidae does a pretty good Geometrid impression, so there are no doubt some of them in here.

At any rate, determining family should be much easier on these for experienced moth people:

Zale?

… Chuck Entz, 29 August, 2009 - 7:57pm

Thanks for finding these Chuck -

will probably be a useful tool for our moth experts to look through, but I assume that you don't want these moved yet? Since Zale and Geometrids are in different superfamilies, as you mention?

… Ken Schneider, 31 August, 2009 - 3:28pm

Agreed- it's only a tool

If it were absolutely certain, I would have moved most of these myself. There are no doubt a significant number that are unambiguously Geometrids, but I'll leave that to others who know more than I do.

… Chuck Entz, 1 September, 2009 - 7:47am

A few possible corrections...

- look more like pyraloidea to me...

- Noctuidae - Heliothinae

- This one, I think, is Zale. There might be a few other Erebids here but I am not too good at recognizing them.

- Geometridae : Eupithecia; This isn't so much a correction as it is a clarification, as these are pretty easy to ID.

… Chris Mallory, 29 August, 2009 - 9:16pm

Up or out

Our moth experts usually skip commenting on those that can't be identified past family. I suggest as a guideline that we try to ID adults to family, and frass those that can't be so identified. Exceptions to be made when there is reason to make an exception.

… John F. Carr, 29 August, 2009 - 6:59pm

here are a few to start off...

… Andrew Meeds, 28 August, 2009 - 5:52pm

Thanks, Andrew!

I moved almost all of these. You have a spider and beetle here, so perhaps typed in the thumbnail wrong? Also, one of the ID's seemed unsure, so I left it in Moths.

… Ken Schneider, 28 August, 2009 - 6:43pm

haha,

my bad... maybe I should get checked for dyslexia or something...

… Andrew Meeds, 28 August, 2009 - 6:46pm

If I have time after classes tonight

And don't have a ridiculous amount of HW, I can try and put together a list of some of the ones that have ID's... I'll just try and post it here or something. Just kind of figure I should do the little bit I can to help out. :)

… Andrew Meeds, 28 August, 2009 - 8:30am

Moving images

Thanks for your help. You may consider becoming an editor at some point. It would be up to John VanDyk to decide. As an editor you could move images yourself and save yourself and others a lot of time.

… Beatriz Moisset, 28 August, 2009 - 9:16am

Righto

Just looking through all the pictures and reading the comments helps me out a bit though too which is nice- get to get some familiarity with a part of my future field. :)

… Andrew Meeds, 28 August, 2009 - 10:13am

Re:

I think a lot of this also has to do with the fact that many images resting in Moths have been ID'd but were just never moved, and it has gotten so out of hand that these already ID'd images have just gotten lost in the sea of pages. I think the top priority should be to move the already ID'd images to the appropriate taxa so that what we are left with are the true unknowns; at that point I think we can start calling in the experts. As things stand right now, the Moths section is a pretty intimidating place for anybody to navigate.

I can start compiling a list of moths to be moved and link to them in this topic if anybody thinks that would be helpful.

… Chris Mallory, 27 August, 2009 - 9:27pm

Thanks -

that is a reasonable approach. Not a big statistical sample, but I went to a random page in the middle of Moths and found 2 of 15 moths to have reliable ID comments that would allow a move, 1 of 15 with a wild guess, and 12 of 15 with no comments at all. So this would suggest both that you are correct and there are a decent number of moths in those pages that are already ID'd, but that perhaps a significant majority are not? When I get spare moments, I'll start moving the ID'd ones. I'd like to hear other comments as well.

… Ken Schneider, 27 August, 2009 - 10:15pm

Well -

I just spent an hour working on the moths knocked down the number of pages from 138 to... 137! :) I stand by my poor sampling noted above - I would estimate that about 10-20% of the moths have an ID and just need to be moved. The other 80-90% have no comments or unsure guesses... A moth expert (i.e. not me) might be able to move many of them to family or superfamily, anyway?

… Ken Schneider, 27 August, 2009 - 11:39pm

Question

I notice that a lot of the moths with no comments can atleast be put into a family/subfamily/genus, even if nobody has been able to ID them to species... is it better to leave these images be, or to move them as far as possible up the taxonomic tree?

When I get home later on today I will start working on this.

… Chris Mallory, 28 August, 2009 - 9:36am

Yep -

getting them to family or genus, if we're quite confident of the placement, would be quite desirable IMO. Some of them may never get to species without genitalia dissections or better pics, perhaps...
I know very little about moths, so hopefully some of our other moth enthusiasts will weigh in here. If you have some expertise in moth ID, you might want to consider asking John van Dyk to be an editor so that you can move images on your own.

… Ken Schneider, 28 August, 2009 - 10:29am

Moth enthusiast

I'd definately consider myself a moth enthusiast - I have been spending this last year studying moths, primarily families/subfamilies of mostly macros, but I'm certainly nowhere near an expert (maybe someday); I don't know how helpful I would be as an editor, but maybe I'll look into it if doing so helps to relieve some of the workload from the other editors.

In the mean time, I started going through some of the images; By the way, I am starting on Page 50 and working my way backwards.

To avoid this message growing to an uncontrollable length, I have not included the thumbs, but I can edit them in if people don't mind. (p) indicates "probable" ID's, but in cases in which this level of certainty is not enough, I have given an alternate ID to a broader taxa in which the species falls.

270529 Meganola minuscula (BP)(p) (atleast Nolidae)
270320 Cladara limitaria (BP)(p) (atleast Geometridae)
270319 Phigalia titea (BP)

270174 + 270171 Schizura ipomoeae (BP)

270168 Petrophila (BP)

267889 Pyraustini (BS)

269011 + 269697 Anticlea vasiliata

267895 Toxonprucha volucris (BP)

267884 + 267885 Acrolopus

269481 + 269480 Pseudexentera virginiana (BP)

269061 + 269062 Phycitinae (BP)

269019 Bucculatrix (BP)

268771 Lymantriidae

267932 + 267931 Plutella xylostella (p)(atleast Plutella)

268621 Eupithecia
268410 Eupithecia johnstoni (BP)
268405 Eupithecia ravocostaliata (BP)

268398 Nola minna (p)(atleast Nola)

266844 + 266843 Malacosoma

268572 Hydriomena nubilofasciata (p)(atleast geometridae)

268537 + 268559 Macaria adonis (p)(atleast geometridae)

269855 geometridae
269308 pyraloidea

268614 + (p) 267882 + (p) 267880 + (p) 268590 + 268591 +
267189 + 267188 + 266855 + 269219 tortricidae

… Chris Mallory, 28 August, 2009 - 3:19pm

Thanks, Chris!

I will try to find time to work on this list over the weekend...

… Ken Schneider, 28 August, 2009 - 6:44pm

Done -

except for the tortricid moves. Down to 133 pages! :) I will keep looking through the pages for already-ID'd ones, but we still need more help with comments/IDs on some of the very nice moth images in those 133 pages.

… Ken Schneider, 28 August, 2009 - 10:07pm

Moved some yesterday...

after going through the first 15 or so pages (mostly based on experts' comments).

… Tim Loh, 29 August, 2009 - 12:03pm

Other taxa with that pesky UID buildup

I've noticed a long wait for IDs of caterpillars and coccinellid larvae.

… R. Berg, 27 August, 2009 - 11:33pm

I've knocked a few down...

UID lady beetle eggs, larvae and pupae is down to 7 pages from 9...I'm working on it :-)

There's a key to lady beetle larvae that I've requested through interlibrary loan; it may take a while to get here, but ooohhh, when it does I'll have fun going through the remaining 7 pages...

… Abigail Parker, 28 August, 2009 - 7:36pm