Snouted Tiger Moth

Description:

Erebidae; Aganainae; Euplocia membliaria (Cramer, 1780). By comparing this specimen with pictures in Philippine Lepidoptera's website, it is clearly a male. The main difference that can be seen, even from a distance is that the female, in dorsal view, has much more colourful wing markings. The most interesting piece of information that I learned, today, about this moth came from Wikipedia's article which explains that the Genus Euplocia is a monotypic genus (a genus with only one species).

Habitat:

This moth was spotted on the gravel forecourt of the rice mill this morning at around 9:00 am. The rice mill is, in an area surrounded mainly by rice fields, but there are also numerous small patches of land with a wide variety of trees, bamboos and other vegetation which appears to be the remnants of tropical forests which have been cleared over hundreds of years and converted into farmland. However, there are efforts being made to help the ecology, such as replanting of mangroves and the strict enforcement of anti-logging laws.

Notes:

I don't know how this moth came to be sitting on the gravel forecourt of the rice mill, but it appeared to be in very good condition and was lethargic. So, I got the impression that it had just eclosed from pupation, possibly one or two hours before I spotted it. My guess is that something (possibly one of the rice mill cats) startled it and caused it to fly before it was quite ready. So, it may have crash landed on that spot. I could not leave it there because the forecourt gets very busy with customer's tractors and trailers and it would surely have been run over. I picked it up as gently as possible and set it down on the trunk of an old mango tree where it would be out of harm's way. When I checked back later, it was gone.