Halone coryphoea

Eastern Halone moth at Wanniassa, ACT

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Identification history

Halone coryphoea	15 Nov 2017	ibaird
Halone coryphoea	14 Nov 2017	ibaird
Unidentified	12 Nov 2017	JohnBundock

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7 comments

donhe wrote:

13 Nov 2017

Looks like Halone sobria

ibaird wrote:

13 Nov 2017

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?

GlennCocking wrote:

14 Nov 2017

It looks like another Halone coryphaea to me

donhe wrote:

15 Nov 2017

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.

ibaird wrote:

15 Nov 2017

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.

GlennCocking wrote:

15 Nov 2017

I agree it is H. coryphaea

GlennCocking wrote:

1 Dec 2017

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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