I could find only one photographed set specimen of H. sobria on BOLD Systems 4, sourced from Tasmania. H. sobria seems not to be a species that Moths of Victoria Part 2 recognises and I do not think their image of Halone sp. (1) (-a high alpine sp..:Mt Bogong, Charlottes Pass, collector: Ted Edwards) - on a supporting CD, or the BOLD systems image, matches this image.. However, I think this image to my eye quite closely matches H. coryphoea, Eastern Halone; see the other images so identified on CNM and on the ALA. Is there any diagnostic reason to favour H. sobria and not H. coryphoea?
Sadly Hampson makes no comment about the differences between his H. coryphoea and Walker's H. sobria, but his drawings of the two species, see http://lepidoptera.butterflyhouse.com.au/arct/coryphoea.html and http://lepidoptera.butterflyhouse.com.au/arct/sobria.html show muted tones in the forewing patterns of H coryphoea, and a greater contrast between tones in H. sobria. The high contrast matches John's photo better. I have yet to understand the DNA groupings in BOLD. Do these indicate that there are actually 2 different species? It is tempting to think that there is only one species with variable wing patterns, in which case H. sobria would be the senior synonym.
We in government, I know, use the Australian Faunal Directory (AFD) as our authority and source of information on speciation.for legislative purposes. My reading of the AFD suggests there are two distinct species recognised. H coryphoea and H. sobria. The AFD indicates H. sobria is confined to Tasmania while the AFD gives H. coryphoea's distribution as the ACT, NSW and Queensland. The AFD entry for H. sobria gives the taxonomic auithority for this distimction to Edwards, E.D (1996) see the AFD entry here: https://biodiversity.org.au/afd/taxa/Halone_sobria. The 1996 date suggests to me this taxonomic decision would have been unlikely to have been made supported by DNA evidence, but I may be wrong.. I suggest we recognise two distinct species and identify this specimen as H. coryphoea.
The two similar Halone species that we should watch out for are H. sinuata which is probably present in the ACT and the high altitude sp that Ian referred to above that might be reported from the high Brindabellas. The three species are most readily separated on hindwing pattern, which doesn't usually show in photos. Separating on forewing pattern alone will be harder.
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