Sávio Cavalcante 🍃🦗
⚠️ tropical goth butterfly-moth* alert

*thank you guys for the correct ID (:

#photography #insects #butterfly #moth #goth #tropical #rainforest #amazon #brazil #night #flash #dark #moody #lepidoptera
Apr 8 at 3:26pmWeb
Show threadGraham Sutherland / Polynomial1d ago

@savcavalcante nice spot! that one's a Giant Butterfly Moth (castniomera atymnius). they have really pretty white and red bands on their hindwings.

EDIT: correction, it's more likely castniomera licus, which is a species I didn't know about! key difference is the hindwings, which aren't really visible here but the very tips peeking out give a hint that it's less likely to be atymnius.

Show threadOzzelot 1d ago
@gsuberland
It's a goth moth.
@savcavalcante
Show threadSávio Cavalcante 🍃🦗1d ago
whoa, thanks! Got fooled by this one 😅
Show threadSávio Cavalcante 🍃🦗1d ago
thanks on the ID! I went over iNat afterwards to check on distribution and saw a tendency for atlantic rainforest occurrence on this species, while my dudes of Projeto Mantis registered ID'ed as 'Telchin licus' ('Castniomera licus', apparently) in the same region where this picture above us was taken in the Amazon Rainforest of Roraima. I was with them on this expedition, but I don't think the specimen on this pic of mine is the same they submited on iNat.

Just sharing these quick findings! I'm more of a praying mantis guy and there's soooo many bugs out there fooling me haha
Show threadGraham Sutherland / Polynomial1d ago
@savcavalcante oh interesting, I didn't know there was another castniomera species! I'll have to take a look at that one.
Show threadGraham Sutherland / Polynomial1d ago
@savcavalcante oh wow they really are very similar aside from the hindwings. makes it a bit tricky to ID which it is from the photo! I think they are right though - atymnius has a white band on the edge of the hindwings, whereas licus doesn't, and from the small bit I can see peaking out it does look slightly more like licus.
Show threadGraham Sutherland / Polynomial1d ago
@savcavalcante the forewing reniforms are remarkably variable in these species, too. not often you get that much difference in pattern sharpness between specimens. I wonder if it largely varies by sex.