Philippine Moth
30 September, 2008
Hello Bugman,
I didn’t realize how beautiful these creatures are until my daughter’s boyfriend brought in a moth perched on our porch stool. He initially thought they were dried leaves. When the moth took flight, it displayed a spectacular fuschia color on the back of its wings and silver stripes on the underside of the wings. I wanted to keep it but it was agitated in the aquarium so I let it go… Its about 3ins in length. Our country, Philippines, is tropic but our city is located in the highlands so it can get quite cold.
AFPh
Baguio City, Philippines
Hi AFPh,
We were obsessed with trying to identify your moth and with our limited free time, it took us a few days to prepare this posting, so the posting date differs from the submission date. We were certain it was one of the Noctuid Moths in the subfamily Catocalinae. Eventually our search led us to a Noctuid Moths of Thailand page with an image of Phyllodes eyndhovii on page 2. A further web search brought us to a Moths of Borneo page, and a photo of Phyllodes verhuelli. We are satisfied that we probably have the correct genus. One page on the Borneo site even has drawings of this species’ genitalia in the event you want to compare your specimen. Often examination of the genitalia is the only definite way to distinguish some species from others in the butterflies and moths.
Thank you so much for your time. You have just helped me become a bug addict . We are discovering new species that haven’t been seen in our area for decades or are just now being seen. I’m thinking climate changes may be a contributing factor to this.
Thanks again.
Update: July 21, 2016
Thanks to a comment from Rob de Vos, we are linking to an image of Phyllodes verhuellii on geheugenvannederland.nl.
Maybe somewhat late, but I hope still useful: Your specimen is Phyllodes verhuellii Vollenhoven, 1858 (Erebidae, Calpinae, Phyllodini). The Philippine specimens are slightly different from those from the Sundanian islands in Indonesia. For instance the red in de circle on the hindwing is much more extended. It might belong to a still undescribed subspecies. In Naturalis Biodiversity Center (Leiden, The Netherlands) we have four specimens from The Philippines and they all look exactly the same as the one from your picture.
We love identifications on old postings. Thanks so much.