Dialectica scalariella at Melba, ACT

Echium Leaf Miner at Melba, ACT

Request use of media

Identification history

	Dialectica scalariella	18 Jan 2021	ibaird
	Dialectica scalariella	18 Jan 2021	kasiaaus

Identify this sighting

Please Login or Register to identify this sighting.

5 comments

donhe wrote:

18 Jan 2021

Do you know how to distinguish this from Dialectica aemula?
Any Echium plantagineum in the vicinity?

ibaird wrote:

18 Jan 2021

No.

donhe wrote:

18 Jan 2021

The moths are superficially similar. The native species D. scalariella was introduced to feed on Echium plantagineum as D. aemula does not feed on it. If there is no E. plantagineum locally, the moths are probably D. aemula.
Tosio and Marianne wrote an article on how to distinguish them:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1440-6055.1997.tb01427.x
but I do not have access to it. Maybe until we have access to it, we should just refer these to 'Dialectica species'.

ibaird wrote:

19 Jan 2021

I can assure you there is plenty of E. plantagineum in Canberra, but whether its plentiful in Melba I'm not sure. I would be surprised if it were not present there. Thanks for the reference. I have access to it online. Excellent photos but of set specimens, of course. I have sent you via email a PDF copy of the paper.

kasiaaus wrote:

19 Jan 2021

There is no E. plantagineum near where I took the photo that I know of but that does not mean that it's not there somewhere out of my sight.

Please Login or Register to comment.