Nymphalid Caterpillar? - Acronicta oblinita

Moved

… john and jane balaban, 29 August, 2010 - 2:32pm

Moved

… john and jane balaban, 10 August, 2010 - 3:19pm

The Noctuids and their kin are a huge group.

They have recently been rearranged with families becoming subfamilies and even tribes. Wagner is writing a new book on the Noctuoid caterpillars of the eastern US. We would imagine the new structuring of the group has caused some significant rewriting of his text, but we think we heard it will be out next year. That will be a great asset in understanding this large (and variable!) group of insects.

… john and jane balaban, 4 August, 2010 - 9:12am

Thank you, John and Jane!

As a biologist, I wade in the shallows of the vast ocean of insect taxonomy. But, quite candidly, as a result of BG I've become exhilarated (as well as intimidated) by the evident range of phenotypic variability found a rather small taxonomic levels.

If i've learned anything of value this year it is this: Contemporary field guides are woefully inadequate (for species idenification) 90 percent of the time (for the insects I encounter). I have much to learn, and BG is a most wonderful way to slowly but surely improve my knowledge of insects and their wonderfully complicated taxonomy! ;-)

PS: I photographed three more unidentified brown moths this morning! ;-)

… Carl Barrentine, 4 August, 2010 - 12:46pm

Our hint would be to check Acronicta oblinita

Not sure that's it, but it must be close.

… john and jane balaban, 3 August, 2010 - 8:22pm

Arghhh! Noctuidae!? ;-)

Good call! Please, forgive me. I'm absolutely hopeless! I was persuaded, by images in a field guide, that this specimen was a butterfly (and not a moth at all, unless it was a caterpillar of some Arctiid moth). ;-)

Thank you, John and Jane! As per usual, you've completely humbled me. I reckon that lots of experience with moths helps, but I am having a dickens of a time getting that. As mentioned in an earlier posting, just about every other moth (adult or larva) that I encounter is a new family or genus! (Except for the Lasiocampids, of course, which were quite numerous here this year.)

You're right. This specimen really does look remarkably similar to images of (Acronicta oblinita) shown on BG! Too boot, on the very day that I photographed this caterpillar, I 'passed-up' the oppostunity of taking a picture of a 'roosting' adult moth that now bears an uncanny resemblance to adult of this species (as shown on BG).

I wrote a note to John Stanard earlier today, thanking him for introducing me to the Erebidae, a family that I never knew existed. ;-) Thank you both, John and Jane, for helping me learn that not all Noctuid larvae must resemble cutworms (which is the image I had in my mind until I saw those BG images).

Moths seem so complicated. But I'll make some progress, I hope...by error, by error, by error. Negation seems to work well for theology too, I think. ;-)

… Carl Barrentine, 3 August, 2010 - 9:15pm

Thank you!

Acronicta here I come! ;-)

… Carl Barrentine, 3 August, 2010 - 8:33pm