Agrotis porphyricollis

Variable Cutworm at Conder, ACT

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Identification history

Agrotis porphyricollis	27 Aug 2017	ibaird
Agrotis porphyricollis	16 Aug 2017	ibaird
Unidentified	15 Aug 2017	MichaelBedingfield

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User's notes

Conder, ACT

3 comments

MichaelBedingfield wrote:

17 Aug 2017

This reminds me of a specimen moth which was rejected, see Glenn's comments:
http://canberra.naturemapr.org/Community/Sightings/Details/3362730

ibaird wrote:

17 Aug 2017

Yes, thanks for your comment. For A. porphyricollis, which clearly is sexually dimorphic, one would expect this light coloured specimen to show male bipectinate antennae, but this specimen does not show that. But I now think, given the wing markings are somewhat different again from the unidentified sp. of 25 October 2016 that this specimen is probably not A. porphyicollis after all.. I had originally thought this was A. munda, but remained unconvinced after looking at many images online. Although that species is quite variable, I found none that seemed to be a good match. What we have in this specimen seems to me to be intermediate in appearance between those two species. However, I would like to hear Glenn's opinion, so I will leave it as suggested A. porphyricollis for now pending his comment or a better suggestion emerging.

GlennCocking wrote:

27 Aug 2017

I've looked at this a few times now and put some female porphyricollis under the microscope to compare. While the photo shows a much lighter specimen than all those that I looked at, there are no inconsistencies in the underlying pattern, so I think it is a female porphyricollis. I can't find anything that rules out the 25 Oct 2016 specimen from also being porphyricollis, but you can't see that one as well as the recent specimen, so it's still doubtful.

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