Species Herpetogramma sphingealis - Hodges#5279.1

5279.1

Herpetogramma sphingealis Handfield & Handfield, 2011 (1)

sphingealis Latin reference to the sphinx moth shape of the males.(1)

There are ten named species of Herpetogramma in America north of Mexico. (1), (2)

Wingspan:(1)

♂ 34-37 mm.

♀ 31-34 mm.

Until recently (2011) this was considered to be a dark form of Herpetogramma aeglealis (1)

Adult:

Uniform dark brown forewing with obscure transverse lines.

Hindwing is dark brown with a dark discal spot.

Underside of head, thorax and abdomen are white.

Sexually dimorphic species(1)

Southern Quebec south to Georgia and east to eastern Texas and eastern Iowa.(1)

Moth Photographers Group - large map with some distribution data.

Dark areas of xeric forests. (1)

Adults recorded during May to September. (1), (2)

Larval host is Polystichum acrostichoides (Christmas fern).(1)

Brian Scholtens comments here, "...if there is a well developed PM line on the hindwing and a significant light coloring outside the PM line on the forewing, then it is aeglealis. All my sphingealis have hindwings with nearly obsolete PM lines. The PM line can be seen on the forewing, but there are virtually no light scales following it. The only truly light scales on the forewing are between the two dark spots in the discal cell. Based on that, I would call GT9A9218 and GT9A9692 sphingealis, but the rest all aeglealis. The overall wing color of both fore and hindwing is quite a bit darker in sphingealis, rather than showing significant mottling as in aeglealis."

Herpetogramma aeglealis in which the forewing has sharply defined transverse lines with pale shading and is a smaller species with 29-34 mm wingspan.

Compare on the pinned plates of Moth Photographers Group.

Handfield, L., Handfield, D. 2011. A new species of Herpetogramma (Lepidoptera, Crambidae, Spilomelinae) from eastern North America. ZooKeys 149. pp. 5-15.(1)

Moth Photographers Group(2)

The Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) (3)