Phytometra laevis

Margined Yellow at Bolivia, NSW

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Phytometra laevis ibaird 16 Apr 2025
Phytometra laevis donhe 16 Apr 2025
Unverified PJH123 14 Apr 2025

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Phytometra laevis (Swinhoe, 1901)

7 comments

   16 Apr 2025
I'm not seeing how to separate the 2 species. PJH123 - Why have you gone for P. laevis instead of P. formosalis ?
   16 Apr 2025
WendyEM, Moths of Victoria v8 states formosalis can be distinguished by its brown eyes. I take this specimen to have black eyes. See Phytometra laevis page 2/2 on the disk
   17 Apr 2025
Thanks. That will teach me for not being thorough enough ! I've had to look for hairy eyes before (= Hadeninae) but not eye colour, 'though the green eyes do catch my eye. thanks again
   17 Apr 2025
It is only that I went looking to see if someone noted a difference
   17 Apr 2025
Peter: can you tell from BOLD that they are different species ? Or could specimens from Oz be a different species from those from rest of S.E. Asia ?
   17 Apr 2025
Don, they are close, all of the Phytometra laevis (65) fit into the one BIN ID: BOLD:AAB1918. A group of 25 range in difference from 0.08% to 0.36%. meanwhile Phytometra formosalis (17) fits into 2 bins BIN ID: BOLD:ACF4053 and BIN ID: BOLD:AAB1918 indicating that some of the formosalis (BOLD:AAB1918) are in fact laevis. Of the ones I tested, 2 sets, one from each bin the difference is 1.37% -1.82% very close, but what makes a species? (we are 2% different to a Chimpanzee). My knowledge of DNA is next to nil and I can only compare the available figures.
Of the formosalis, ANICI254-10 and ANICI255-10 belong to laevis BIN ID: BOLD:AAB1918, while the rest are in BIN ID: BOLD:ACF4053
   18 Apr 2025
That sounds consistent with the P. formosalis being strictly from Asia, and P. being strictly from Oz, although they are superficially similar ?

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  • 12mm to 25mm Animal size

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