Guardian Nature School Team Contact Blog Project Noah Facebook Project Noah Twitter

A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife

Join Project Noah!
nature school apple icon

Project Noah Nature School visit nature school

Lawn Armyworm

Spodoptera mauritia

Description:

The wingspan is about 40 mm. The larvae feed on various grasses, including Cynodon, Pennisetum clandestinum, Sorghum bicolor, Oryza sativa as well as Casuarina equisetifolia. They are considered an international agricultural pest on crops and pastures.

Habitat:

Spotted on my gauze window.

Notes:

Thanks to Jakubko for the ID!

16 Comments

Jacob Gorneau
Jacob Gorneau 10 years ago

Here's another photo:
http://www.pbase.com/image/84066383

Please add this moth and other moths you find to my mission, "Moths of the World:"
http://www.projectnoah.org/missions/8841...

Thank you very much!

AliceGreenup
AliceGreenup 10 years ago

Alrightie sounds like a plan! Now I just have to hope bayucca sees it!

Hema  Shah
Hema Shah 10 years ago

you might leave it as unknown and wait for Bayucca to se eit.

AliceGreenup
AliceGreenup 10 years ago

Ahh that might be it then! Thanks jemma!

Hema  Shah
Hema Shah 10 years ago

Alice,I think that the antenna a re similar, If you look carefully they are slanted downwards,parallel to each side of the wing.
And according to Bug guide these are found in Australia.

AliceGreenup
AliceGreenup 10 years ago

It does seem very similiar but does the one in your spotting have the same antenna? Also is that moth found in Aus?

Hema  Shah
Hema Shah 10 years ago

Alice,I saw a somewhat similar moth ,about 1 cm,.Check to see if any similarities.
http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/277...

AliceGreenup
AliceGreenup 10 years ago

It was around 2cm and I initially spotted it on my gauze window

Hema  Shah
Hema Shah 10 years ago

yup,how big was this? and was it around wild Lettuce?

Hema  Shah
Hema Shah 10 years ago

Small Ranunculus?

AliceGreenup
AliceGreenup 10 years ago

Thanks Satyen! I didn't realise how pretty it was till i looked back at the photos

Wild Things
Wild Things 10 years ago

Lovely series!

AliceGreenup
AliceGreenup 10 years ago

Hi ken thanks for taking the time to ask me. I'll have to have a think about it as I'm dreading the time it would take to re-upload all my spottings elsewhere.

kwalker
kwalker 10 years ago

Hi Ken again -- Your moth is definitely a Noctuidae and I think it belongs to either of these two genera: Epicyrtica sp. or Thalatha sp.

Cheers

Ken

kwalker
kwalker 10 years ago

Hi AliceGreenup -- I have just seen your entries on Project Noah and thought I would contact you. BTW -- I live in Melbourne Victoria.

I am on a mission to capture Australian Biodiversity for Australian Scientists to use to better understand our unique Australian biota.

I see so many wonderful images with associated GPS and date records. Records with GPS and Date are valuable scientific records which unfortunately I fear are being lost to science. I say "lost" because the information is not uploaded to the Australian National Biodiversity aggregator called "Atlas of Living Australia" (www.ala.org.au).

ALA currently aggregates data from all Australian Museums and Herbaria and it is used extensively by Australian and overseas scientists - particular to model changes in our Australian environment.

Here is an example: You can ask ALA to display the distribution of a Koala and then overlay that with a distribution of its eucalyptus foodplant. Then using these distribution points, you can model a temperature change of 0.5 or 1 or 5C over the next 50 to 100 years and watch what happens to the distribution of the Koala and its foodplant. However, models are only as good as the original dataset and this is why I say that your local records should be made available to the general scientific community -- we call you a "Citizen Scientists" and we believe that most of the future biodiversity data will be generated by people like you -- you see something and your record it and it gets uploaded to the national dataset.

ALA commissioned me two years ago to build a website dedicated to Citizen Science - called BowerBird - which was recently on 10 May 2013. In nutshell, here is how BowerBird works:

- There are a series of "Projects" that are created by people.
- Anyone can join these Projects and form a community of like-minded interests sharing their finds
- Someone uploads an image(s) of something and add a location (GPS) and date to their images
- Anyone in the Project community can then help to identify it, or comment on it, or tell their own story about that species, or Vote for that image, or describe that species etc.
- If the images have been submitted under the Creative Commons License 3.0, then the images and GPS/Date data will be automatically uploaded to ALA and add a new dot on a map for that species.

BowerBird provides a social framework - just like a Field Naturalist Club - for members and their data is added to the National Biodiversity dataset.

I would be very keen to attract you to join BowerBird and to contribute across a wide range of animal and Plant Projects. You take such a variety of great photos.

Here is the URL to this Project showing almost 230 fungal observations: http://www.bowerbird.org.au/projects/4/s...

Please do keep your Project Noah account but I do hope that you will consider sharing some of your wonderful sightings and knowledge with Australian Projects and Australian Scientists.

BowerBird has a number of expert moth specialist who are very happy to identify images uplaoded to BowerBird. Here is a URL to the BowerBird Moth Project: http://www.bowerbird.org.au/projects/196... We've love you to join this Project.

If you are interested, the BowerBird website is: www.bowerbird.org.au.

My name is Ken Walker (kwalker@museum.vic.gov.au ) and I a senior scientist at Museum Victoria and one of the 3 developed of BowerBird.

if you contact me, I will send you a BowerBird User Guide and offer to assist you where ever possible.

Thanks for your time and efforts.

Cheers,

Ken

AliceGreenup
AliceGreenup 10 years ago

Can anyone help with the ID on this one?

AliceGreenup
Spotted by
AliceGreenup

New South Wales, Australia

Spotted on Jun 11, 2013
Submitted on Jun 11, 2013

Related Spottings

Oriental leafworm moth yellow-striped armyworm Oriental Leafworm Moth Cotton Cutworm

Nearby Spottings

Spotted Turtle Dove Pied Currawong Blue-faced Honeyeater Spotting
Noah Guardians
Noah Sponsors
join Project Noah Team

Join the Project Noah Team