Ottawa (Dunrobin), ON Canada 17
April 2005 (moth captured on the night of 16 April 2005)
(top and bottom)
Both photos are of the same specimen.
Lithophane querquera is apparently a new addition to
the list of over 20 species of Lithophane that have been recorded
from the Ottawa area (J.D. Lafontaine, pers.comm., 2001; J.T. Troubridge,
pers.comm., 19 April 2005). When I saw this moth on the wall by my
small UV light in the early hours of 17 April 2005, some time after my
visiting collectors had dismantled their MV set-ups, leaving only a few
blacklight traps remaining around our woods, my immediate reaction was
"Lithophane! But which one? This one is
new!" The moth was in a rather awkward location for taking good
photographs, but I took a few shots, and managed to reach up and nudge it
into a vial. The next morning, when Jim Troubridge came to pick up his
traps, he agreed that it was a Lithophane, but like me, couldn't put
a species name to it. I took some indoor photographs during the day,
and the following day took it to Jim at the Canadian National Collection in
Ottawa. He had a much closer look at it, and we found one specimen in
the collection that was very like this one, but the identification was still
uncertain. A day later, Don Lafontaine had also examined it, and Jim
was able to tell me that they had identified it as Lithophane querquera,
a species that has very seldom been recorded in Canada. The specimen
will be kept for the CNC, and I will keep watching for another!
This specimen of Lithophane querquera varies somewhat
from the usual appearance of the species, which comes in both a dark and a
light form, both of which are illustrated on the Moths of Canada website of
the Canadian Biodiversity Information Facility at: http://www.cbif.gc.ca/spp_pages/noctuoidea/imagelibrary/enoct3h_e.php.
What I notice in this specimen is the very pale gray thorax,
the basal dash bordered with bright white on its upper side, and the
prominent smear of pale gray extending outward towards the apex from the
reniform spot. Overall the forewing is a medium gray with black
lines. The orbicular spot is somewhat elongated, and filled with light
gray; the reniform spot is similarly filled with light gray, but followed by
the pale gray smear mentioned previously. In this specimen, the
darkest area of the forewing is near the anal angle, where the area outside
the postmedial line is almost black.
The larvae of Lithophane querquera feed on many
trees, and are also reported to eat other caterpillars (Covell, 1984).
Covell indicates that, like other Lithophane species, L. querquera
flies in early spring and in the fall, hibernating through the winter in its
adult form.
My sole record to date for Lithophane querquera (each
date representing "the night of") is in the table below: |
