Subject: Unknown insect from French Alps
Geographic location of the bug: Val Claret 2300m Tignes, France
Date: 05/27/2019
Time: 01:17 PM EDT
Your letter to the bugman: Possible White Hyphantria ermine or cunea moth Spilosoma lubricipeda following the only similar picture found so far…
But my beauty has no wings!
How you want your letter signed: Silvia
Dear Silvia,
We agree that this is a Moth, but we are not certain of the species or even the family, though we are leaning to Geometridae. Females of certain species of Moths in the Inchworm family Geometridae and Tussock Moths in the family Erebidae are wingless, hence flightless. Perhaps one of our readers will recognize your beauty and write in with an identifying comment.
Dear Daniel,
Thank you so much for your reply. I got nuts trying to know even what the family was! I’m not entomologist, but biologist, hence very curious
Kind regards,
Kind regards,
Silvia
The most similar I found on Heppner (1991) is Nyssia zonaria, I’m not sure if it’s a match, but seems to have three subspecies:
http://www.lepiforum.de/lepiwiki.pl?Lycia_Zonaria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycia_zonaria#Subspecies
http://www.troplep.org/TLR/2-1/pdf002.pdf
Thanks for that research Cesar.
The most similar I found on Heppner (1991) is Nyssia zonaria, I’m not sure if it’s a match, but seems to have three subspecies:
http://www.lepiforum.de/lepiwiki.pl?Lycia_Zonaria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycia_zonaria#Subspecies
http://www.troplep.org/TLR/2-1/pdf002.pdf
It’s curious that she said “But my beauty has no wings!” and the common name, according to Wikipedia is belted beauty.