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Photo#364478
oak-slug moth - Euclea nanina

oak-slug moth - Euclea nanina
Okeechobee County, Florida, USA
November 11, 2009
Please refer to comments for BG photo #364477 (adult Euclea sp.)

Moved

Moved

 
classic nanina
Wing shape (stubby), the convergent subapical and postmedial green patches, the position of the orange patch, and the location all point clearly to this being Euclea nanina. There are others in Florida that are perhaps hybrids between the two that have smaller amounts of green, but still have stubby wings, but this one is very clear.

 
Why not nanina?
This looks like typical nanina to me.

 
delphinii vs nanina
See comments here for a previous discussion on the difference between the two.

edit: I'll add, this little male is nearly ambiguous enough to straddle the fence, but the manner in which the basal green patch borders precisely along vein CuA without so much as a green scale above it, puts the weight behind delphinii. Males of the two species are always the hardest to differentiate, often overlapping in size and superficial pattern.

 
I am aware of the differences
I sorted out the Euclea at the Mississippi Entomological Museum last week. This looks a lot like nanina to me, but it's your call.

 
Euclea
Honestly, I thought perhaps you moved it in error, that's why I moved it back.

The green basal patch relationship to vein CuA is not (yet) being considered diagnostic, but has proven reliable among all the "more typical" specimens sequenced and those we've dissected thus far. It was an ongoing discussion with numerous experts, but not that long ago - a few years ago maybe - Dave Wagner made me aware of a nearly all brown nanina variation where the CuA vein characteristic fails (due to severely reduced basal patch). I've only collected two male delphinii in Florida (Pinellas County - 1 in early April 21mm, 1 in Mid-July 23mm) both looking just like the above specimen.

That said, I'm not necessarily objecting to you moving it to nanina since you have experience with this group (most people don't have our sort of experience with Euclea). But outside of confirmed size, sequencing, or dissection to confirm ID, I tend to default to the other typically reliable characteristic thus far, that being the basal green patch relationship to the CuA vein ("green forms" and "brown forms" excluded).

I'll let you make the call on this one though. I haven't worked with Euclea or read up any new data on the group since 2012, so I'll tip the scale over to your more recent experience.

Moved

Moved
Moved from Euclea.