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Project Noah Nature School
Paradirphia frankae
This is a medium sized moth (about 4 cm) (Family Saturniidae) with a lot of individual variation in the intensity of color on the wings. It has a very hairy orange or pink thorax and the abdomen is striped in black and red or dark orange. The legs are also orange or pink and hairy. When touched, it opens its wings partially, curls its abdomen inward and exudes a yellowish fluid (which undoubtedly tastes horrible). It will drop to the ground before it will fly. It is commonly seen in the summer in San Cristobal and there are often several together under lights, all facing upwards.
Urban and semi-urban in the valley of San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, 2,200 meters.
The 2nd picture is of 2 males together, showing the light brown and dark brown color variation, taken on May 27th 2013 in the same garden under a light.
Spotted on Jun 20, 2009
Submitted on Sep 30, 2012
10 Comments
Thank you venusflytrap2000, that picture is now listed as Paradirphia semirosea and was moved: http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/828....
Hi Bill. I have removed the second and fourth images to a new spotting under the name Paradirphia semirosea, I also added 1 or 2 other photos that I had of those same moths, unfortunately still not enough. I will get more pictures of all and any of these moths for you when they show up again.
New spotting: http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/828....
I am pretty sure the second image is a male Paradirphia semirosea and the fourth image is a female Paradirphia semirosea. Both have (in your images) extremely heavily marked am and pm white lines. I also note in the second image, where we can see the hind wings, that there are shitish areas on the veins at the intersection with the median band. I have not seen this on any Paradirphia that have been described. It is possible that both of these moths, images 2 and 4, are of undescribed species.
Bill Oehlke
PS I am hoping you can get more images of these moths and can show images of moths with wings spread and also the undersides as you have done with many of the other species. very nice pictures.
love the second pic!
I am pretty sure the fourth image in the string is Paradirphia semirosea or something as yet undescribed, but closely related to semirosea.
The very heavy white am and pm lines are perhaps an aberration or an unusual variation, and the proximity of the lines to each other where they meet the inner margin is perhaps a result of the thick white banding.
It is not a perfect match for semirosea or any other known species, based on the traits indicated above.
Bill Oehlke
Thank you Bill. I am so impressed with what you are finding in my pictures. I scarcely had anything to the right species. I changed the name for this one, but will leave all the other pictures here in place until you let me know - and then I will create a separate spotting for each species. This is so cool!
When you took this picture (first one in sequence) in 2009, this species had not been described.
In 2010, Brechlin and Meister named and described Paradirphia frankae from San Cristobal and that is what you have at least in the first image in the strip. I still have to do some more work to determine the others. It is also possibly that you have as many as four different species here, maybe even five as the third image could contain two different species.
Bill Oehlke
When you took this picture (third one in sequence) in 2009, this species had not been described.
In 2010, Brechlin and Meister named and described Paradirphia leoni from San Cristobal and that is what you have at least in the (top) third image in the strip (possible the lower, darker moth is something else). I still have to do some more work to determine the others. It is also possibly that you have as many as four different species here. I will try to sift through them in the next couple of hours as I update my own files. Quite a few new Paradirphia names were put forth in 2010 from southern Mexico.
Bill Oehlke
Added pictures of this species.
Added a new picture of this species.