Oecophorid Oddities

Oecophorid oddities

The moth family Oecophoridae Is represented in Australia by three subfamilies. The Oecophorinae is the largest with over 2500 described species but with a potential of over 5000 in Australia!

Every night there are dozens of species at the light but a couple of the oddest are represented here.


Polyeucta callimorpha (Lower, 1893) had been known from only a few specimens until it started turning up at my lights. Aside from its dazzling array of colours. It has highly modified maxillae (mouthpart) with black tips that resemble antennae. The antennae are actually held alongside the body at rest. It’s a member of the largest subfamily in Australia, the Oecophorinae.


Zatrichodes sp., a Fringemoth, is a tiny thing of beauty. It is a member of the subfamily Stathmopodinae. The “hairs” are actually scales coming from the joints of the legs.

Cassowary Capers

Cassowary Capers!




Pops and his watchful eye. The male looks after the chicks until they are nearly adult. Females have no role in bringing up the young.



Cassowary Babies 2007 #2
21 Nov. 2007

I just couldn’t let these guys pass by without another go. They have gained weight and size in less than a week. They squeak as they did when they first appeared. This vocalization will continue until they are just about adult.

Cassowary Babies 2007

CASSOWARY CAPERS

Late in the afternoon of 15 Nov. I glimpsed a black image out of the corner of my eye as it walked past the door of my house. A week or so prior I had seen a very, old female Cassowary on the premises but it was with surprise and delight to discover our resident male with 3 young of the year. They must have been very recent hatchlings as they were tiny-about the size or slightly smaller than the average bantam. They seemed to be on their maiden walk and totally unfamiliar with their environment. In fact, they probably had not eaten before as the male had to show them food and coax them to try and eat it. The chicks have a distinct colour pattern that will change in time. In the 5 years that we have been here, we have not seen him mature 3 young. There must be some calamities—predators, accidents, parasites, which take their toll. The incredible size disparity between the male and the chicks suggests that a misplaced foot could easily crush one of the babies. On the other hand, it is touching to see how gentle he is with his young. The male will look after these young himself for many months. He usually leaves them to their own devices the following August. I’ll keep you posted as I expect them to be daily visitors over the next few months.

Mentors

The late Dr. E. C. Zimmerman and Dr. Edward S. Ross at “Zimmie’s” home in Tura Beach, New South Wales, 1997.


Dr. Edward S. Ross, looking under a log in the Grampian Mountains, Victoria, Australia, 1997, on one of his several trips to the continent.


Mentors
My first contact in entomology was with Dr Edward S. Ross. I had a very early interest in insect, probably as a result of my paternal grandmother’s general interest in nature. When I was 12, my father took me made an appointment, through a Mr. Bob Dempster, to meet Dr. Ross in the Dept. of Entomology of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. This was to begin a life-long association that continues to this day.

Dr. Ross was feisty and opinionated but I only remember the positive advice he gave. When I, and my life-long friend Chris Wemmer Camera Trap Codger , became hooked on photography, Dr. Ross advised my mother for me to bypass the amateur stage and start out at the professional level with the best camera I could afford. That was an Asahi-Pentax. Chris’ father was into family photography and was another good source of information. Chris and I photographed all sorts of natural history subjects. We were told “only to use Kodak film”. Other cheaper films probably would not last very long was Dr. Ross’ comment. To that end, decades later, when he was asked to submit a series of photos for the CD-ROM “Insects Little Creatures In A Big World” for the CSIRO, amongst those I selected was a perfectly good slide of a skipper butterfly that he had taken in the 1950’s. His book “Insects Close-up” if not the first, was one of the first books on insect photography.

Both Bob Dempster and Dr. Ross thought I should join the Student Section of the California Academy of Sciences. This was a Department of the Academy that catered to the specialised biological and geological interests of students in San Francisco. I was eager to join and met many similar-minded students from the city that I would never had had the opportunity to meet. A very high percentage of those students went on to higher achievements in biology and geology in many parts of the USA and beyond. Many of the friendships I made there continue to this day.

When it came time for me to think of university, that decision was not difficult. Dr. Ross told my parents that the University of California, Berkeley was the number one place in the USA for entomological training. It was just a short ride away from San Francisco. I went there for 10 yrs!

Dr. Ross has mellowed over the years and is in his mid 90’s now. He continues publishing papers on his pet entomological interest, the Embidina, the Web-spinning insects. He feels he needs another lifetime to adequately finish the job. I hope to have a future Blog on these fascinating insects. Over the years Dr Ross has become known for his photographic expertise covering many fields from nature to anthropology. He has published many articles in journals and magazines and has major contributions to books in several fields. His entomological wanderings have taken him to all continents and he has been largely responsible for building the enormous insect collection housed at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. Boy am I lucky my father followed Bob Dempster’s advice.

Reference

Ross, E. S. 1953. Insects Close up A Pictorial Guide for the Photographer and Collector. University of California Press, Berkeley, 80 pp.

Moths 3-The Poofeyhoose Moths

Anisozyga fascinans (Lucas) occurs from Cape York to northern New South Wales

Pyrrhorachis pyrrhogona (Walker). This species is distributed in the tropics from India and Sri Lanka to New Guinea through to Thursday Island to Brisbane and Toowoomba.

Comostola cedilla Prout

Metallochlora sp. probably lineata Warren

Unknown genus and species.

Cholorcoma dichloraria. The caterpillars are known to feed on Acacias.

Comostola laesaria

Agathia pisina. The caterpillars feed on the vine Gymnanthera nitida (Periplocaceae).

Gelasma orthodesma

Uliocnemis partita. the caterpillars feed on Eucalyptus.

Moths 3
Poofeyhoose Moths

Mentors influence us all when we are young. One of my most influential mentors was C. Don MacNeill. He had an influence on a great many young biologists, most of whom had kept in contact with him over the years. He is greatly missed. Camera Trap Codger (see September) published a touching note on this man. One of the many distinctive terms he had for things was his classification of green geometrid moths as “poofeyhoose moths”. I’m not sure of the spelling of this word or even if it’s a word but it was Don’s word for “outhouse” or “bush toilet”. Inevitably there would be one or more of these green moths on the wall in these places. It was true in California and it is true in Australia! I have harboured that term in my head for over 45 years and it is usually reinforced—when the need arises!

The Kuranda rainforest has a number of very attractive green geometrid moths. They are all members of the Geometrinae, a subfamily with a great many species ranging in size from a centimetre or so across to 3-4 cm. Little is known of their larval stages and few are seen during the day—except, perhaps, in the usual places.

Moths 2

Hercules Moth: male top, female below.



Donuca rubropicta (Butler)

Hypsidia erythropsalis (Rothchild): Head-on view top, dorsal view below.

More on moths

One of the icons of the northeastern Australian rainforests is the Hercules Moth, Coscinocera hercules, one of the world’s largest moths. Females are larger than the males, often attaining more than 20 cm across and have shorter tails. Males are usually darker than the females. These moths seem to be most active on cooler nights. Adults do not feed. They, like many other moths, survive for a few days on fats stored during the caterpillar stage. Males are more commonly found at lights. If they are recognised in the morning, the Butcherbirds finish them off. Females lay about 200+ large eggs on a variety of trees, both native and introduced. Size of the adult moths varies, probably based on the quality of the food they have eaten.


The family Oecophoridae is probably the most diverse family of moths in Australia. The larvae seem to be leaf litter feeders and occur in regions outside of the rainforests. The most common families in the rainforests seem to be the Noctuidae and the Geometridae. The oecophorids are present but in numbers less than encountered elsewhere. Perhaps, that is because leaf litter is more promptly processed in the rainforests. In the eucalypt woodlands where oecophorids predominate, leaf litter is deep and not so quickly processed. Who knows? Donuca rubropicta (Butler) is a beautiful noctuid moth that frequently comes to lights. It seems to combine cryptic, disruptive and startle colour patterns.

Hypsidia moths have been bandied about from the Noctuidae to the Pyralidae but are now placed in the Drepanidae, the Hook—tip moths. H. erythropsalis Rothchild is a common visitor to lights in the Kuranda rainforest. But it really does not have hook-tipped wings! Maybe it is still misplaced in the Drepanidae. But as I have noted previously, though common, it is one of those moths that I have never encountered during the day. It must be distasteful as birds avoid eating the moths from the light sheet.

Moths

One of the many colour phases of Syntherata janetta (White) (Saturniidae)

Moths
“Australia has somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 species of moths (a number comparable to the number of flowering plants)….” A quote from the recent book by Zborowski & Edwards (2007). So it’s not too bold to suggest that there might be 1,000 species living in the rainforests and associated woodlands around Kuranda. In fact, there may be many more than that! I have been collecting moths for the Australian National Insect Collection, CSIRO, Canberra, every night for more than 4 years and not a night goes by that I don’t find one or more species that I had not seen before. They are so diverse in size, colour pattern, habitus and behaviour that one local artist has adopted them as an artform. His mothology site mothology is well worth a look. All the moths he uses in his art are from the Kuranda environs. Remarkable!

This is the first in a series of blogs on the moths of Kuranda.

The majority of moths are active at night. You see very few of them during the day. Most of the moths I find I have never seen in nature-only at the light sheet. Their diurnal activities, if any, are not known. It is assumed that most sit motionless to avoid predation. The wide range of colour patterns suggests a variety of strategies. Brightly coloured, often reddish or orange, moths are usually distasteful to birds and lizards. That this advertising strategy works is seen each morning on the light sheet. The moths are often the only ones that birds and lizards have left there.

The larvae (caterpillars) of most moths have not been seen. Some of the more prominent species Hawk and Silk Moths have large and obvious caterpillars and they are common if you find the appropriate host plants. But the great majority of caterpillars are hidden and have never been seen.

Some moths are seasonal, others can be found at most times of the year. And there are some that are vagrants. That is they are just flying through and are attracted by the light. The group of moths above illustrates what one might expect on a night in the rainy season. They are mostly noctuids feeding on fruit in the bird feeder. The largest moth is Ischyja neocherina, one of the fruit moths that causes damage in orchrds due ot its feeding activities which allow fungi to damage the developing fruit.

Reference

Zborowski, P., Edwards, E. D. 2007. A Guide To Australian Moths. CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne.