Thursday, 6 March 2014

Agonopterix ciliella

Hopefully, you can just make out the very feint lines in the terminal cilia - these are the hairs that stick out from the edge of the wings, in this case the hind wings. It's not terribly clear as the photo was taken with the cheap office camera, down the new office microscopes, with the moth in a tube. Agonopterix ciliella has five bands in the terminal cilia, whilst heracliana only has one. So I can make out two at the edge of the wing in this photo, and could see a third on the live moth 'in the hand', so it couldn't be heracliana.


I couldn't get the heracliana to pose properly, but I couldn't see any lines at all on that one.
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4 comments:

  1. Vaughn Matthews6 March 2014 at 12:27

    Thanks Dave - that's very helpful (or at least it would be if the moth hadn't escaped in the process of me photographing it...). I will bear that in mind in the future.
    Cheers,
    Vaughn

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  2. GMT6 March 2014 at 16:29

    Interesting Dave, I must keep checking my heracliana, though all those I've ever checked have been that species.

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  3. Tom Tams15 March 2014 at 17:37

    It's not that straightforward, Agonopterix heracliana can show up to three cilia bands in the hindwing

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  4. Tom Tams15 March 2014 at 17:45

    Sorry forgot to add link, if you scroll down there are nice comparison's of hindwings at http://www.lepiforum.de/lepiwiki.pl?Agonopterix_Ciliella

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