Heliocausta undescribed species

A concealer moth at O'Connor, ACT

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Identification history

Heliocausta undescribed species	17 Aug 2019	ibaird
Heliocausta undescribed species	16 Aug 2019	donhe
Heliocausta oecophorella	7 Aug 2019	ibaird

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User's notes

Attracted to UV led light at night.

5 comments

GlennCocking wrote:

17 Aug 2019

I think it better matches a Heliocausta species that is common in ACT and elsewhere on the southern tablelands. H. oecophorella is mainly a southern SA and WA moth. We have one report previously assigned to that species, although the base colours presented in the photos are quite different.

donhe wrote:

17 Aug 2019

The BOLD webpage for H. oecophorella shows it clustered around NSW with outliers extending from Qld to Tas, SA, and WA., and shows very wide variations of forewing patterns from yellow with a large brown tornal patch to entirely brown with some dark spots to plain brown.
Is it sexually dimophic?
The intra-species variablity seems to exceed the inter-species variation, so I do not see how we can possibly determine the species from a photo.

GlennCocking wrote:

17 Aug 2019

BOLD has put its Heliocausta into 5 Bins. The ones that have "forewing patterns from yellow with a large brown tornal patch" are all in the same bin, and they are from SA/WA. These are the ones that ANIC has placed under H. oecophorella, and I suspect I'll find they match the type description. The other specimens in this Bin and all the others are variations of brown with dark marks , and BOLD has called many of them H. oecophorella. The variation seems to be independent of sex. I agree we can't determine the species from a photo, and think we should call them H. sp.

donhe wrote:

17 Aug 2019

I have put links to Walker's original description, and to Meyrick's descriptions of the synonyms H. paralyrgis and H. eudoxa at the foot of the webpage
http://lepidoptera.butterflyhouse.com.au/wing/oecophorella.html
My understanding of all three descriptions is that they all say yellow forewings with a brown area along the margin extending along the hind margin. Meyrick also describes some forewing dark spots for H. eudoxa,
but none of the three descriptions appear to mention the forewing marginal and submarginal arcs of dots apparent on this CNM 4231746 and on some of the BOLD specimens.
Maybe I am missing something?
Common in his Wingia Group book, on p. 271 fig. 501, has a photo of a specimen with forewings each having a marginal arc of spots and some submarginal spots, which he notes as Helicausta sp.

GlennCocking wrote:

21 Aug 2019

The evidence suggests Heliocausta sp is the best identification. It seems that the yellow form with a dark fw termen with an inwards extension( as illustrated on Butterfly House) is H. oecophorella, and the many brownish/reddish specimens with small dark marks may be H. oecophorella or even one of the other two named species, but most likely one of many potential unnamed species. ANIC has many specimens of such forms, including plenty of one from Black Mountain.

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