i discovered this insect in my garden in southwestern Mexico. it was a little less than approx. two inches long (not including the antennae). it was enjoying nectar from a buddleia plant and this is the first time in 4 years i have seen this insect here.
that is actually a clearwing moth of some type. hopefully someone can find a better ID for you! =D Will see if I can't find it...
EDIT: No luck on google =/
Hopefully someone can give you a more specific ID.
This message was edited Dec 12, 2011 12:45 PM
thanks LadyAshley for the clue...it will save me some time exploring the "bee" idea...somewhere this critter is probably common as ants and maybe someone will be familiar with it. i appreciate your response, regards, beverly
edit: what do you think of this? http://www.flickr.com/photos/artour_a/463338404/in/set-72157603542118616
looks like it could be Isanthrene crabroniformis in the family Arctiidae...a moth evidently commonly mistaken for a wasp
This message was edited Dec 12, 2011 3:56 PM
It looks similar but I'm not sure it's the same species. Later i'll try to get two pictures, and see if there are differences in the wing structures.
thank you again...i tried the bugman at whatsthatbug.com but the program is not working too well and don't really expect a response from them. will look at more images tomorrow. sounds like you are quite knowledgeable about moths and i appreciate your help. regards, beverly
This definitely looks like a Isanthrene sp., but whether it is I. crabroniformis is unclear; there are the questions of individual variation and sexual dimorphism to be addressed.
thank you flapdoodle. do you think I sp. is as close as i'll be able to get given the image i have and the variables? i understand that there are tropical butterflies and moths where species can only be determined via dissection. maybe this is one such case? perhaps ladyashley will have further input. with appreciation, beverly
There are a great many insects (and spiders) whose specific i.d. can be determined for certain only by dissection or other non-macroscopic means. Making specific i.d.s from images alone is fraught with danger. Among other things, there are a lot of misidentified images on the web.
I took a picture from "What's that Bug" and blew it up, rotated, and clipped out the wing for comparison.
It looks the same as far as wing and cell structure.
I think you have it right for the ID, as far as I can tell physically, with the natural variation in the species colors, however, I don't know if there are similar species that are identical with the exception of dissection. Would be up to you to find out that info ;)
this page has a list of similar species and subspecies.
http://zipcodezoo.com/Animals/I/Isanthrene_crabroniformis/
Should help narrow the search!
EDIT: Peeking at similar species, not so sure anymore. I'm up to "cazador" which may be our first contender.
http://www.boldsystems.org/views/taxbrowser.php?taxid=102349
will look more closely later.
This message was edited Dec 13, 2011 12:13 PM
My goodness LadyAshley you are a wonder and a marvel of assistance and information and i do thank you sincerely. I will look at boldsystems (which is a website i haven't been introduced to yet) and other generally reliable sites (i.e. sites where professional staff carefully review each image offering before posting to their databases). First, i'll take a look at sp. cazador. Regards, beverly
edit: the zipcodezoo listed 53 similar species, one being Isanthrene colimae. given that i live in colima, i think this would be a good one for me to explore. i find no information regarding I. colimae (except that it is similar to I. crabroniformis); taxonomy yes, but a description or image of the moth, no. i wish i could put a "SOLVED" signature to this conversation but don't know where to go from here. i think what i'll do is try to find a contact at the university of colima who may recognize this moth. right now, my eyes are rolling around in my head so i think i'll take a break :-)...we got pretty close though, didn't we? thanks so much. beverly
This message was edited Dec 13, 2011 4:53 PM
gee whiz LadyAshley and Flapdoodle...I pursued information at the whatsthisbug website, and they were very responsive. the two photos i submitted to them (one showing the legs being completely black) were referred to Julian Donahue for identification...we all agreed that it was not Isanthrene crabroniformis and Julian Donahue suggested that the species was most likely pyrocera or colimae. I googled for both I. pyrocera and I. colimae images and right there were my two images both identified as I. crabroniformis. i wrote to whatsthisbug letting them know that i was pleased that they had my images on their website and google (more people will see them and possibly have further information to add) but that they shouldn't be identified as I. crabroniformis and hopefully they will make the correction I requested. It is a good illustration of what Flapdoodle has to say about erroneous identifications. This comes as no surprise to me because I have found numerous errors when viewing googled images. This is why I generally go to professional organizations when I'm looking for images. Sites such as "butterfliesofamerica" have experts review all images before posting them. Still, i think the people at whatsthisbug are well-meaning and most helpful and somebody was just a little overly eager to post the photos but i do hope they make the corrections because it speaks to their credibility as a website. So, this query is almost, but not quite solved...I.pyrocera or I. colimae. Thanks to you both and if i do find convincing evidence that it is one or the other, i will post the information to this thread.
Yeah I went through a lot of those, and just put it down after a bit, to leave it to someone who was much more experienced with these species!
I run across things misidentified on google all the time.
Great that you've narrowed it down to two!
We'll have a new bug file if you can get past that!
Ash
