Käyttäjän gcwarbler päiväkirja

Gee, I ought to get outdoors more...

My health suffers because of iNaturalist. I spend far too much time at the computer and snack on too much junk food as I try to identify obscure moths for other people. The hours of screen time by day leave me with that visual/biochemical hangover at bedtime that all the doctors have warned us about. I lay awake at night in bed, worrying why I can't identify that fungus gnat that seems so distinctive to me. But I'm up the next day, composing an iNat journal post that will thrill at least three people around the World, yet tearing my hair out trying to get the formatting to work, or worrying that my Spanish grammar in the brief resumen will make me look estúpido.

Who will be the next person to block me? or disagree with one of my identifications? or, worst of all, properly correct one of my erroneous IDs? I will be humiliated. No one will like me. I will have alienated 2.9 million other human beings scattered around the globe. I won't be able to show my face anywhere....

Wait a minute! Outdoors! I can go out-of-doors! Into Nature! I won't have to interact with my own species for a time. I can recharge my mental batteries. My lithium batteries are all charged up and I only have to open the door and step out.

Ah, the Fresh Air! The sounds of Nature! What a beautiful trail I'm on. There's birds--and I know all of their sounds--and butterflies--and I can name them all--and beautiful flowers and plants--the entire ecology of which I can expound upon at length...to myself, under my breath. And there's a moth, but it flies away too quickly. "I'll see you at the moth sheet tonight, my friend!" And look at this fancy lichen on the oak branch; I can put a name to this one! And that mushroom over there--I know someone who can help me ID that--and the same for that hoverfly on that daisy, and I think I remember the family name for this creepy little millipede under the log.

Uh, Oops! Aaaagh! I've slipped on the leaf litter and fallen and broken my wrist! Oh, the pain...the agony! The frustration...the hassle...the expenses! At least I broke my wrist in a lovely location. And I was smart enough to break my off-hand, my left. I'm well reminded that the outdoors is a dangerous place!

Boy, will I be glad to get back to my computer and rejoin my Community. Safe, secure, accepted. Nature is so interesting....online.

[An English version of this article follows the Spanish version, below.]

Resumen: Druce describió dos nuevas especies similares en el género Thalpochares en Biología Centrali-Americana en 1910: T. hirasa y T. idicra. Más recientemente, las dos especies han sido incluidas en el género Tripudia. Las especies parecen no haber sido reconocidas en el campo durante más de un siglo. Recientemente identifiqué varios ejemplos de las dos especies entre las observaciones de iNaturalist del oeste y sur de México.

Varias especies del género Noctuid Tripudia tienen cada una algún tipo de mancha dorsal rectangular o redondeado de color marrón oscuro en las alas anteriores. Los más extendidos y llamativos son la Tripudia quadrifera y Tripudia rectangula. Herbert Druce describió dos especies relacionadas con estas en el género Thalpochares en la Biología Centrali-Americana en 1910 (Vol. I, p. 314; Vol. III, pl. 29, figs. 15, 16): T. hirasa y T. idicra. Autores posteriores (Hampson, Draudt, etc.) las enumeraron en el género relacionado Cobubatha, pero más recientemente, las dos especies se trasladaron a Tripudia (FUNET).

Recientemente estaba tratando de ponerle un nombre a una polilla Tripudia no identificada de Sinaloa, México (publicada por @sinaloasilvestre), y noté la similitud con la distintiva "Thalpochares hirasa" de Druce:

Tripudia hirasa: Veranos, Sinaloa, México, Copyright @sinaloasilvestre
Posteriormente, encontré al menos otros ocho registros de esta polilla entre observaciones mexicanas que se remontan a 2017. Los registros provienen en su mayoría de Sinaloa, pero hay al menos un registro de Nayarit y otro registro probable de Baja California Sur. No he podido encontrar otras ilustraciones de esta especie ni otras imágenes en línea. Tripudia hirasa se puede reconocer por la mancha dorsal curva o en forma de maza, delineada de forma estrecha en blanco. La mancha se estrecha considerablemente en el lado distal en el margen interno del ala anterior, lo que le da a la mancha una forma general arqueada o de gancho.

En el curso de la búsqueda de más ejemplos de Tripudia hirasa en imágenes de iNat, noté un conjunto diferente de observaciones de México que coincidían con la descripción e ilustración de Druce en la BCA de "Thalpochares" [= Tripudia] idicra (misma página y enlaces de placas que arriba), y posteriormente encontró un total de siete observaciones que parecen coincidir con esa especie.

Tripudia idicra: cerca de Veranos, Sinaloa, México, Copyright @sinaloasilvestre
Otra vez, no puedo encontrar otras ilustraciones de T. idicra ni ninguna otra imagen en línea. Tripudia idicra aparentemente se distingue de T. hirasa por una mancha dorsal con márgenes blancos que es más grande y más redondeada, que se une ampliamente al margen interno del ala anterior, que no se estrecha como en T. hirasa. T. idicra suele tener un color marrón mucho más oscuro en el área posmediano más allá de la mancha dorsal; este área es generalmente de color marrón cremoso más pálido en T. hirasa. Hay otras diferencias menores en el patrón. Observaciones en iNaturalista de T. idicra son de los estados de Sinaloa, Nayarit y Guerrero, con otros registros en El Salvador y Costa Rica.

Summary: Druce described two similar new species in the genus Thalpochares in the Biologia Centrali-Americana in 1910: T. hirasa and T. idicra. Most recently, the two species have been placed in the genus Tripudia. The species seem to have gone unrecognized in the field for over a century. I recently identified several examples of the two species among iNaturalist observations from western and southern Mexico.

Several species of the Noctuid genus Tripudia each have some type of rectangular or rounded dark brown dorsal patch on the forewings. The most widespread and conspicuous of these are the Harp-winged Tripudia and Rectangular Tripudia. Two species related to these were described in the genus Thalpochares by Herbert Druce in the Biologia Centrali-Americana in 1910 (Vol. I, p. 314; Vol. III, pl. 29, figs. 15, 16): T. hirasa and T. idicra. Later authors (Hampson, Draudt, etc.) listed these in the related genus Cobubatha, but most recently, the two species have been moved to Tripudia (FUNET). [See original images from BCA, above.]

Recently I was trying to put a name to an unidentified Tripudia moth from Sinaloa, Mexico (posted by @sinaloasilvestre), and noted the similarity to Druce's distinctive "Thalpochares" hirasa. [See image above.] Subsequently, I found at least eight other records of this moth among Mexican observations going back to 2017. The records mostly come from Sinaloa, but there is at least one record from Nayarit and another probable record from the Baja California Sur. I have been unable to find any other illustrations of this species or other online images. Tripudia hirasa can be recognized by the curved or club-shaped dorsal patch which is narrowly outlined with white. The patch narrows considerably on the distal side at the forewing inner margin, giving the patch an overall arched or hook shape.

In the course of searching through iNat images for more examples of Tripudia hirasa, I noted a different set of observations from Mexico which matched Druce's description and illustration in the BCA of "Thalpochares" [= Tripudia] idicra (same page and plate links as above), and subsequently found a total of seven observations which seem to match that species. [See image above.] Again, I am unable to find any other illustrations of T. idicra nor any other online images. Tripudia idicra is apparently distinguished from T. hirasa by a white-margined dorsal patch which is larger and more rounded, meeting the forewing inner margin broadly, not indented as in T. hirasa. T. idicra usually has much more dark brown color in the postmedian area beyond the dorsal patch; this area is generally paler creamy-brown color in T. hirasa. There are other minor differences in pattern. iNaturalist observations of T. idicra are from the states of Sinaloa, Nayarit, and Guerrero, with other records in El Salvador and Costa Rica.

Mary Kay and I took a couple of hikes in Forest Park in suburban Portland, OR, today. And today's effort was purposefully a little different for me in the field. Because (a) we were hiking in a densely-shaded forest which was giving my small point-and-hope Canon camera fits in the low-light conditions, and (b) we were in an urban park with pretty good cell phone reception and I had my trusty new iPhone 14 at hand, I decided to go full “iPhone-iNaturalist” mode for the day. This was a way to both accumulate some more observations but, more importantly, to better familiarize myself with the operation of the iOS version of the iNaturalist app. Previously I had occasionally “Explored” an area with the app, but I rarely uploaded observations in real time in the field. This was a chance to try my hand at the latter type of work flow.

So in about 4 hours and 3 miles of hiking (a pretty typical iNat pace for me), I made and uploaded about 75 observations. In my recent uploads (for July 3 from about 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT), this includes all the plants and a few critters from https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/170866351 through https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/170909028.

I came away with the following take-home lessons:

— It’s so much fun and so easy to accumulate observations in real time; this is a drastic reduction in the work required compared to my usual tedious work flow that I’m infamous for. See, for instance:
https://www.inaturalist.org/posts/37458-my-inaturalist-upload-process (Am I right? @sambiology, @kimberlietx)

— In addition to the fun of quicker uploads, I think the real-time and repeated access to field identifications is a hugely positive learning tool. I found myself more readily cementing into my neurons the names of new-to-me plants without the need of continually leafing through a field guide or waiting until I got back to other references at home. This, of course, is a direct result of being in the field in an area with relatively strong cell phone coverage. Elsewhere in the “boondocks”, this capability wouldn’t exit. Using the app in the field as a handy learning tool is also constrained by the following issue:

— Adding identifications to observations for real-time uploads is still a somewhat frustrating and iffy process. iNat’s Computer Vision is amazing and is improving with every release. However, suggestions for plants are still most commonly placed at genus level in a botanically diverse area like the Pacific Northwest. That means a lot of genus-level uploads and the need to wait until I get back to references (i.e. hard-copy books and full-fledged internet) or wait on others to refine those IDs. Maybe this shows my own impatience or my pathological self-reliance on such matters; I am uncomfortable relying on external “validation” of IDs.

— Because of the limited editing tools available to use on images in the iOS version of the app, I quickly found it necessary (to meet my own demanding standards for cropping, etc.) to take images with the Camera app first, then edit them a little bit (especially cropping) in Photos before grabbing them from the Photos stream to upload them as observations from within the iNat app. If I simply accessed the camera from within the app, I was left with whatever image size, shape, and quality was obtained in real time. The newer iPhones have great cameras, but most often they just don’t meet my standards for iNat submissions. I understand that for the vast majority of cell phone contributors of iNat observations, this is less of an issue. But as the cliché goes, “I have my standards.”

All-in-all today’s hiking with the iNat app was a very positive experience and exposure for me. I’m sure you’ll be seeing more such uploads from me in the future, but…I’m still old school, so I’m not giving up my beloved field guides, books, MPG, BG, Biodiversity Heritage Library, and other tools. My work flow for the thousands of observations thus far (and in the future) accumulated on the present road trip will still take the pathway characterized by my long-ingrained snail pace!

On the Moths of the Greater Austin project journal, I just uploaded a detailed account of our (@jcochran706 and me) recent recognition of a Texas endemic Phycitine moth, the "Cute Plateau Pyralid", which flies for only a brief time in the Spring. That post has some identification notes and will soon have some supporting images. In the meantime, here are links to the iNat species pages for the Cute Plateau Pyralid, it's MPG page, and it's most similar relative, the Dusky Raisin Moth, and it's MPG page.

This ought to be spectacular! The National Butterfly Center has announced an exciting new event, Mega Moth, scheduled for Labor Day Weekend, Friday-Monday, September 1-4, 2023. The event will be based out of, and focused, of course, on the National Butterfly Center near Mission, Texas, with host accomodations at La Quinta Inn & Suites in McAllen. Registration is now open. Complete details about the event can be found here:

Mega Moth Mission

There will be many mothing stations set up at NBC on Friday through Sunday nights, as well as workshops and guided walks during the day. Lecturers will include Jack Cochran (@jcochran706) and Kate Fatras (@k8thegr8), with a keynote talk on Saturday night by yours truly.

With this journal entry, I’m announcing the topic of my Saturday evening talk, which will be: “A ‘Birder Gone Bad’: Expanding My Horizons into Mothing.” I will explore my own journey into moths, along with the commonalities of this path traveled by—or available for travel to—anyone with a keen interest in Nature.

I hope all of you will consider being a part of this inaugural event and join us at the National Butterfly Center in September!

See also, Jack Cochran's (@jcochran706) announcement of the event here.

March is a wonderfully busy month for all of us iNaturalists. I’m a little late getting this posted but I wanted to announce a couple of opportunities for Austin area iNatters.

1. I will be hosting a visit in Austin for our pal and premier iNaturalist James Bailey of California (@silversea_starsong), March 7-13. James will be staying at our house on Salton Drive and I’m going to be figuring out a schedule of daily target activities to maximize James’ time in Central Texas. We have no fixed schedule yet but we’ll probably be making local field trips within 1-2 hours of Austin on most days, March 8-12. We might even organize a pot luck dinner in James’ honor on the evening of Friday or Saturday (March 10 or 11). All of this is to be determined. But PLEASE leave a note on this journal post, message me directly, or send me an email at [gcwarbler AT austin.rr.com] if you’d like me to keep you advised of the anticipated schedule. We’d love to coordinate with and link up with as many other Austin-area iNatters as we can.

2. Mike Murphy (@mikmurphy), owner and proprietor of Los Madrones Ranch near Dripping Springs, TX, has invited local iNaturalists in the Austin region to visit the ranch for a memorial mini-bioblitz on Saturday, March 25, in honor and memory of our friend Greg Lasley who spent a lot of time on Los Madrones.
   http://www.losmadrones.com/LM/Home.html
   Mike announced the event in a comment on the RIP Greg Lasley blog here:
   https://www.inaturalist.org/blog/46021-rest-in-peace-greg
   There will be a midday BBQ and we will be setting up a few mothing stations at Los Madrones on Friday night. Visitors will have the opportunity for overnight camping (primitive) but facilities are limited. Please contact Mike Murphy directly on iNaturalist or via his email address (see the above blog). Here’s a link to an iNat map of observations in/around Los Madrones Ranch off of Hamilton Pool Road in western Travis County:
   https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?nelat=30.316904240666155&nelng=-98.05598944758576&place_id=any&subview=map&swlat=30.2840014028492&swlng=-98.07804793452424

Please leave a comment here or message me directly and let me know of your interest in either/both events.

My recent research into “The Complex History of Two Lichen Moth Genera”, Cisthene and Illice (including a discussion of Eudesmia and several other lichen moths), has now been published in the December 2022 issue of Southern Lepidopterists’ News (Vol. 44, No. 4, pp. 461-468). A pdf copy of the paper is available to download on ResearchGate.net at this link.

If you have trouble downloading that paper or don't have access to ResearchGate, please message me privately and I can send it as an attachment to an email. I'm going to tag a number of iNatters who contributed images and otherwise helped with this research.

Resumen (español): Eudesmia quadrifasciata es muy similar a E. arida. Su principal carácter distintivo, la mayor parte de las alas traseras negras, no es evidente en las fotos de campo. Las diferencias sutiles en la forma de la mancha subterminal en las alas anteriores pueden ayudar a distinguir la especie; esta mancha es más corta y más en forma de lágrima en quadrifasciata que en arida. Los rangos de las dos especies están muy separados. E. quadrifasciata se encuentra desde el estado de México al sur hasta Oaxaca.

Eudesmia quadrifasciata: Acatlán, Puebla @hildeberto | Zapotitlán, Puebla @bsullend

Eudesmia quadrifasciata: Ixtapan de la Sal, México @mizrain | Zapotitlán, Puebla @monitorzapotitlansalinas

The lichen moth Eudesmia quadrifasciata (Erebidae: Arctiinae) is very similar to E. arida of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. Walker (1865) described "Gerba quadrifasciata" from Oaxaca, Mexico, from a single male specimen. It's primary distinguishing character is the mostly black hindwing with just a small basal spot of orange, a character that will be unrecognizable in most field photos. Other than this aspect, Walker's brief original description does not allow for handy discrimination from most other Eudesmia which occur in Mexico. Of note, however, Walker did mention that the subterminal crescent "narrows towards the interior angle, which it does not reach." Hampson's (1900) redescription of quadrifasciata and illustration of the type (below) indicate that the subterminal crescent runs from "just below the costa to just below vein 2", i.e., somewhat shorter than the more northern E. arida and unlike E. menea. The illustration of E. quadrifasciata by Hampson (1900, pl. 25, fig. 23, below, left) shows a forewing that is probably indistinguishable from that of E. arida but Draudt's illustration (1918, pl. 35, row i, below, right) emphasizes that the subterminal crescent is short and teardrop-shaped (thicker anteriorly, narrowed posteriorly). As with populations of other species/phenotypes, the hue of the color bands and their widths vary quite a bit within the small available set of images. None of the available images on iNaturalist shows a view of the hindwing or abdomen.

Among iNaturalist observations as of 20 December 2022, I identified 9 observations in the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Puebla, Morelos, and Mexico which have a distinct short, teardrop-shaped subterminal crescent (map, below). An additional somewhat disjunct record in the state of Jalisco appears to be of the same phenotype:

Dyar's (1917) "Cisthene" [= Eudesmia] tehuacana, described from Tehuacán in the state of Puebla, Mexico, apparently differs from E. quadrifasciata only in that the abdomen is "black above, except at base and tip". I expect this is just a regional variant of E. quadrifasciata.

References:

Draudt, M. 1918. 61. Genus: Cisthene Wkr. Pp. 273, In: A. Seitz, The Macrolepidoptera of the world: a systematic account of all the known Macrolepidoptera. Division II: The Macrolepidoptera of the American Region, Vol. 6. The American Bombyces and Sphinges. Publ. 30, XI, 1918.

Dyar, H. G. 1917. A note on Cisthene. Ins. Insc. Menstr. 5:8-10.

Hampson, G. F. 1900. Catalogue of the Lepidoptera Phalaenae in the British Museum. Vol. 2. Catalogue of the Arctiadae (Nolinae, Lithosianae) in the Collecion of the British Museum. London. 589 p.

Walker, F. 1864 [1865]. List of the Specimens of Lepidopterous Insects in the Collection of the British Museum. Part XXXI--Supplement. Printed by order of the Trustees, London.

I'm learning how to use SimpleMappr (SimpleMappr.net) to create distribution maps. Here I'm going to try to embed the first map I created. It shows the distribution of five species of Eudesmia lichen moths in southern South America. The data are mostly from a download of all iNat sightings of four of the species as of Dec. 8, 2022, with the addition of a couple of records from earlier literature. Please don't take this as a final product of anything. I'm still working on the data set. This is just an EXAMPLE of the use of SimpleMappr.

The next test is to show a downloaded version of a map which I then uploaded to Flickr and will embed here. This shows the distribution of observations of Eudesmia cypris in Mexico, from iNaturalist data as of Dec. 8, 2022. This can be compared to the (adjacent) screen capture of the iNat observation map from my previous post on this species. (There are more dots on the iNat screen capture because it includes a few sightings on which there isn't community agreement yet, e.g. the original observer or subsequent identifier has not yet concurred.)

Well, that seems to work OK. Don't worry about the size of the legends, scales, etc. These versions of the images have been reduced just to fit conveniently in the journal format.

Resumen (español): Entre las varias especies del género de líquenes Eudesmia descritas en México, E. cypris se reconoce fácilmente por su tórax negro. Por lo demás, es muy similar a E. arida. Ocurre en las tierras altas del centro de México en los estados de Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacán y el sur de Zacatecas.

Eudesmia cypris (L to R): Agauscalientes, @leptonia | Michoacán, @minerva31 | Michoacán, @elrayman210

In my continuing review of the literature on the lichen moth genus Eudesmia, I have tried to carefully read the original descriptions, compare those to the earliest published drawings of the species (often from the type specimens), and then compare these to the array of modern images available on iNaturalist and other repositories. This is very challenging for the populations of this genus in Mexico. There are no less than 11 species names that have been applied to various Eudesmia populations in Mexico. Many of these are likely to be synonyms because of the variation in color and patterns that wasn’t appreciated by researchers in the 19th Century (see my journal entry on this topic). However, a few of the named species have distinctive enough characters to be recognizable in modern images.

One such species is Eudesmia cypris (Druce, 1894) (originally described in the genus Ruscino; see below). Druce described the species from a specimen from Lake Chapala, Jalisco, Mexico. This is a blackish moth with the standard Eudesmia orange-yellow median band across the forewings, a subterminal arc of the same color, and with the basal part of the hindwings also orange-yellow. Druce described the median orange-yellow band as “wide”, but his illustration in volume 3 of the moth volumes of Godman & Salvin’s Biologia Centrali-Americana (plate 78, figure 5; see below) shows a Eudesmia with a rather narrow median band compared to the variation seen in various other populations and species. The margins of this median band are fairly straight.

The subterminal orange arc is much like that in Eudesmia arida in that it does not quite reach the costal margin of the forewing. Most importantly, however, Druce further described the species as having the “head, antennae, thorax, abdomen, and legs black; collar and tegulae orange-yellow.” The black thorax and abdomen are evident in the aforementioned image in the Biologia and these are distinct from all other populations of Eudesmia in Mexico. The next nearest species with black on the thorax are the distinctive Eudesmia unicincta and Eudesmia lunaris of Colombia and Venezuela. Populations of other named Eudesmia species all around E. cypris have an entirely orange-yellow head, thorax, and abdomen.

As I reviewed observations on iNaturalist, I encountered a distinct set of images in the highlands of central Mexico with the diagnostic black center of the thorax, surrounded by the orange collar and tegulae as described by Druce. They occur in a geographically unified region in the interior of Mexico in the states of Aguascaliente, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacán, and Zacatecas (see screen capture from iNat, below). I conclude that these all represent Eudesmia cypris. The species appears to be confined mainly to the western portion of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (TMVB)(see map below) and nearby highlands of the Sierra Madre Occidental to near Zacatecas (city). There are no images yet of the species on the Pacific coastal slope of west Mexico and none south of the TMVB.

Map of Eudesmia cypris observations, as of 7 December 2022. For another version of a range map of Eudesmia cypris, see my journal entry on testing SimpleMappr.

Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (TMVB). Adapted from Pérez-Moreno et al. 2021. Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(13), 6126. Open Access, downloaded from mdpi.com.

Thus far this range seems to be allopatric with (i.e., completely separate from that of) Eudesmia arida which occurs south to northern Zacatecas in the west and across the arid Mexican plateau to Nuevo Leon, San Luis Potosi, and Hidalgo. I haven’t found any other obvious field marks for separating cypris and arida in images of living moths except for the black thorax (which is all orange in arida). It is conceivable that cypris is just a regional color morph of arida (in which case, “Eudesmia cypris (Druce, 1894)" would have name priority over “Eudesmia arida (Skinner, 1906)”), but that must await proper phylogenetic studies with genitalic examination and DNA analysis.

References

Druce, H. 1894. Descriptions of some new species of Heterocera from Central America. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (6)13:168-182.

Druce, H., 1881-1900. Biologia Centrali-Americana. Insecta. Lepidoptera-Heterocera, Vol. I., Vol. II (1891-1900), Vol. III (Plates; 1891-1900). Edited by F. D. Godman and O. Salvin. Links to BHL: Description of Ruscino cypris in Vol. II; link to plate 78 in Vol. III.

Skinner, H. 1906. New butterflies and moths with notes on some species. Entomol. News 17(3):95-96.