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Yellow Leopard Moth

Dysphania sp.

Description:

Geometridae; Geometrinae; Dysphaniini; Dysphania sp. nr. subrepleta. The moth shown here looks pretty close to the specimen displayed in https://philepidoptera.wixsite.com/moths... and also looks close to a specimen in https://www.mothsofborneo.com/part-9/dys.... The dorsal view shows yellow from the head to the posterior tip of the abdomen. There are black stripes on the dorsal view of the abdomen which might appear to be rings going all the way round, but a lucky lateral shot shows that these stripes go less than half way round. There is a heavier set of black stripes on the ventral side, which align with the upper stripes but don't quite join up with them. The gaps between are filled by strong black spots. The wings are mostly yellow with heavy black markings. All rather difficult to describe, but once seen, never forgotten. A very striking moth.

Habitat:

I spotted this moth visiting Dwarf Santan (Ixora coccinea) growing on the verge just opposite our house. The plants had been trimmed over the years to form a kind of floral hedgerow and it attracts great numbers of butterflies, all year round. I am certain that I had seen Dysphania spp. there on many occasions, but never had a camera to hand until this time. I had always thought that I was looking at a butterflies. I suspect that these Dysphania spp. might be the only moths visiting the flowers of this plant.

Notes:

On https://eol.org/pages/61035 it is stated that Dysphania moths are nocturnal., but this spotting was at around 10:00 a.m. and all the previous times I had seen them were in the daylight hours. I also have some pictures taken in our vegetable patch of a Dysphania sp. (with some very small differences in the black markings). That one was also spotted in daylight hours and I intend to upload a spotting to Project Noah for that one in a day or two.

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John B.
Spotted by
John B.

Palauig, Central Luzon, Philippines

Spotted on Oct 22, 2016
Submitted on May 6, 2022

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