A beautiful moth

JoanYoung · Post by **JoanYoung** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:41 pm

I loved the colour and pattern on this moths wings.

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 6:35 am

That is a beautiful moth Joan.

I have never seen a blue one before and those "wood grain" textures of the wings are really something to see. Do you know what kind it is? Well if not I am sure someone will know. BugGuide has about seven hundred some odd digital pages of moths to browse through, most being more than several images of the same moth

JoanYoung · Post by **JoanYoung** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 7:43 am

Thanks Ken.

No I cannot find out what kind it is as there are no books on moths here. The closest I can come to it seems to be some kind of hawk moth as they seem to have similar patterns.

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 7:55 am

WOW, that is one incredible looking moth Joan. What a great mix of colors and patterns. Plenty of similar ones here in the USA, but have only seen gray colored ones. A great find.

JoanYoung · Post by **JoanYoung** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 8:08 am

Thanks Doug. It is one of the most beautiful ones I have seen here. A large one too!!

Tony T · Post by **Tony T** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 9:07 am

Yes, beautiful colours and pattern
Ken: Bug Guide is for NA, this is a South African moth.
If this was from NA I would say something in the Noctuidae, perhaps in the Hypeninae - but these are pretty wild guesses,
I'm more confident in saying it's not a Hawk Moth (this also a risky statement).

Lepidoptera wings are great subjects for testing resolution of lenses and/or one's technique.
For the lower photo you should be able to see at least the rows of scales (somewhat like tiles on a roof)
The fringe of scales at the edge of the wing should be discernible as individual scales.
The lower blow-up seems a little soft, perhaps more of a DOF and focus problem rather than a lens resolution problem.

DaveW · Post by **DaveW** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 9:46 am

Try e-mailing Lambert Smith for identification using the "Contact" box on this link Joan and either attach your picture or link to it here:-

http://www.insecta.co.za/index.htm

There are books on S. African moths if you do a Google search.

Is the moth actually that colour or are they interference colours that change as the angle of viewing changes:-

http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/ind ... cales.html

DaveW

JoanYoung · Post by **JoanYoung** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 11:32 am

Thanks for the comments Tony and Dave. Most moths in SA are undentified unfortunately. They have been left as no one is very interested in them.

This is its proper colours Dave. He was in the shade so there is no reflection in its wings.

The only book available which has about 15 moths in it I have, and this one does not appear there unfortunately.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 1:13 pm

I'm not so sure, Joan.

The overall blue sheen does look to me like an interference color reflecting diffuse skylight. Notice that the right front wing has a lot more blue on its leading edge than the left one does.

It can be very difficult to photograph stuff like this so as to completely avoid interesting reflections. There has to be light coming from somewhere -- otherwise the picture would be black -- and some of these wings are very good at catching it from odd angles and pitching it back to the camera with color shifts.

--Rik

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 1:39 pm

I don’t know but I have read, not in relation to butterflies or moths, that birds and frogs for example, Blue Jays, are not blue, nor are frogs necessarily green and have they have none of the pigments present in them that one would think they have just by looking at them. It is all in the way light reflects off of them that makes them appear as to what color they supposedly are. Maybe this moth is one of those.

DaveW · Post by **DaveW** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 1:54 pm

To illustrate the point Rik I was trying to find pictures of Camberwell Beauty butterflies. As I recall they reflected light because one wing appeared purple-blue when looked at from an angle to one side but the other was brown. I remember seeing them when young in a butterfly collection pinned with their wings in a shallow "V" shape, and I could not weigh up why a butterfly would have one blue and one brown wing.

I only worked this out when I moved to the other side and viewed it at a similar angle and then the wings swapped colour. I presume in flight they must flash blue and brown to put predators off or attract a mate. Evidently it is hard to photograph this colour as all I can find on the web have both wings brown, but they are photographed in plan view rather than at an oblique angle.

http://www.habitas.org.uk/moths/species.asp?item=5558

DaveW

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 2:15 pm

DaveW wrote:http://www.insecta.co.za/index.htm

Great link, Dave!

See http://www.insecta.co.za/lepidop/pages/mcr3137e.htm .

He lists it as "Sundowner Moth (Sphingomorpha chlorea)".

More pictures are a bit hard to track down. Google doesn't have them indexed under its Image search, but I was able to find a few by just doing an ordinary Web search and then reading the most promising pages. There's an interesting picture here, about 1/4 way down the page -- search for "sundowner".

To my eye, the other pictures show all the same details, but not the blue sheen.

Do these look like the same beasts, Joan?

Dave, yep, those Camberwell Beauty's sound like a great example. It turns out that most of the bright blue colors in butterflies (and birds too, I suspect) are interference colors. If you can lay hands on a specimen and don't mind getting it wet, that's a quick test. I did a little demo a couple of years ago, here.

--Rik

JoanYoung · Post by **JoanYoung** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 2:15 pm

Thanks Rik, Ken and Dave.

Rik
We have a lovely butterfly here which has two beautiful blue spots on the wings when the sunlight falls on it just right but this moth stayed this blue no matter what angle I took the pic from. It was early morning and it was on the opposite side of the sun on the side of a building so was definitely not getting any sunlight. I have another shot which is taken more to the side of it and both wings are still the same colour. However, you may be right in that it does not need as much light as what the butterfly does.

DaveW · Post by **DaveW** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 2:50 pm

Yes it's strange Lambert's moth has a blue sheen too, but I believe chlorea means green!

I would guess the Camberwell Beauty is pretty rare in the UK, with only the odd one appearing now and then from the Continent, so not much chance of even seeing one let alone getting one.

DaveW

Tony T · Post by **Tony T** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 2:54 pm

[quote="rjlittlefield
He lists it as "Sundowner Moth (Sphingomorpha chlorea)".
--Rik[/quote]

That was scary

. I had ID'd it earlier as in the Family Noctuidae (Owlet moths) and not a Hawk Moth. But the genus name suggest a Hawk Moth (Hawk moths are in the Family Sphingidae). However checking the refs I see that this species is actually an Owlet Moth