Ceryx claremontii (s.l.?)

Wasp Moth (Syntomini), according to Alberto Zilli from the NHM a very good match for Ceryx claremontii, but the species may be in need of a revision.
Other images of same species:

comments (14)

Ferdy Christant

Lion

Sugian, how sure are you of this species? Which reference did you use?
Reason I ask this is because reference images of Amata huebneri show white tips at the end of the antennae, whilst your photo does not. Furthermore, they do not have the yellow bands on the legs, whilst your does. Posted 7 years ago
1. SUGIAN1212
  
  Lion
  
  I just referred to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amata_huebneri. I'm not quite sure the different between Amata Huebnaeri n the yellow spotted winged Tiger Moth. As I'm not a scientist then I wish someone could correct it if the ID I mentioned was wrong. Posted 7 years ago
2. 1. Ferdy Christant
    
    Lion
    
    I've asked an expert to have a look at this. Posted 7 years ago
  2. 1. Pudding4brains
      
      Lion
      
      Howdy to all, I don't do butterflies or moths, but from what little I've learned from trying to identify some holiday images from Indonesia, is that Amata is a notoriously difficult genus to identify from photo's alone.
      Unsurprisingly it is very, very iffy to rely on "reference images" from the internet to be reliably identified, which introduces the likeliness of propagating identification mistakes made by others to the point that there are more images with distinctive characteristics found that carry a certain incorrect name, than similar images with a correct name.
      
      I'm not going to dig into this myself now (no time and not my forte anyway), but I hope that with the info I'll outline below you have a slight "beginners manual" of how to go about getting a more reliable ID (generally, not just in this case) for images of insects. Just looking at images on Wikipedia, Flickr etc. is often quite counter productive for reasons mentioned above.
      As for the remarks brought forward by Ferdy I can only quickly say this:
      - The antennae may very well be white at the tip _above_ (and black below)
      - The first tarsal segment being white _does_ seem to set this animal off from the ones usually identified as huebneri, but personally I'm not even sure these are likely correct as I haven't gone through the exercise outlined below myself.
      - I'm pretty sure you will very likely need at least some proper dorsal images, showing the pattern of the hyaline spots on the wings and the colour patterns on abdomen, thorax and even head/face to get anywhere.
      
      Sorry if this makes things look daunting (insect identification very often is), but I can only advise you to try the exercise I've outlined below. It will take you a day or so, but it will teach you _a_lot_ AND there really is a fair chance that by some unique character visible in your images (such as maybe even the white first tarsal segment?!?) you will actually come to a (very) good estimation of what species it might be.
      Really - DO TRY - you will see that it is quite interesting and probably not as hard/impossible as you may think in advance :o)
      Good luck & cheers! Arp Posted 7 years ago, modified 7 years ago
    2. 1. Ferdy Christant
        
        Lion
        
        Thanks so much for responding, Arp! And sorry if I have interrupted your time. Your advise is solid as is the guide, and it just show how difficult reliable identification can be for certain categories.
        
        I'll fully admit that I do generally start out with general image search to get a feeling of something being correct, or "warm", or just plain wrong. You know, as a first clue. After that I would quickly run into my own lack of skills, as well as a lack of time. I could probably spend a whole night trying to identify one, and still not be sure. Yet I need to curate many more than one, so this leaves a gap.
        
        That's why I cherish specialists so much, we quite simply need them when we have a doubtful case. But of course that too is voluntary work and not a "helpdesk" to call every minute. A tricky balance to manage. Posted 7 years ago
      2. Pudding4brains
        
        Lion
        
        Hi Ferdy, never hesitate to ask :o) I fully understand your time restraints (same here :o) but sometimes I may have a quick answer or general idea for a search direction that may help. It's always tempting to put in some extra time and see where it leads - when doing so one always learns a lot. I tend to do that more easily for requests than for my own images and always enjoy the exercise (if time consuming), but in the end it is always my own responsibility and choice to do so or not.
        As for the image search - of course we all do that as a first step :o) No one I know would start with a basic key to insect orders and work top down from there. We always try to find a starting point as far down as possible and take it from there. Such as here: Amata is a fair general direction, so we work from there - take it one or two levels up, and then work back down again. The most important point is trying to find out what related or even lookalike species are known to occur in the region, because more often than not that will be many more species than the handful that we can find images for on the internet. So that is where the real work starts ... finding descriptions, keys and reference images for all those :o) Posted 7 years ago
    3. SUGIAN1212
      
      Lion
      
      I will post the clear picture of this moth in the next few minutes so you can get the correct ID. Tq Posted 7 years ago
    4. 1. Pudding4brains
        
        Lion
        
        Thanks for that :o)
        
        For now I should apologize because I somehow had you in my head for India, so some of the info I looked up doesn't apply to Indonesia *rolleyes*.
        May have a look later and see what I had found when IDing my own images from Java some years ago... Posted 7 years ago
      2. Pudding4brains
        
        Lion
        
        Okay, so I've had another quick look. From superficially scanning the images I could find (yes, me too Ferdy! :o) , my general direction of search for a match would be genus Caeneressa. The only images on the internet that I could find for that genus are all labelled "Caeneressa diaphana" but there is quite some difference between them, so I'm assuming a lot of bad IDs there (as mentioned above).
        Nevertheless, the only "good" info I could find quickly is the old revision for _Chinese_ Caeneressa (Obraztsov, 1957) and from the plates in that I would also assess that the images he published for various subspecies of Caeneressa diaphana are the closest match for your animal (and that is China, so the subspecies from Java may indeed be slightly different).
        Obraztsov, Nicholas S. (1957) The Chinese Caeneressa Species (Lepidoptera ,Ctenuchidae) :
        https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2789937
        Plate 3: https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2789995
        
        I simply don't have the time, nor the documentation to make a more in depth study of it now, but I'll pass your images on to Rob de Vos, our Dutch expert for this group. He might not have the time to respond, but it's worth a try :o)
        For now, I'll boldly take out the "Amata" tags and change those to Caeneressa, but with no guarantees that I'm correct in doing so. Posted 7 years ago
        
        Pudding4brains
        
        Lion
        
        Rob responded and (quite interestingly!) didn't have a match in his material either, so he advised me to contact Alberto Zilli, the expert at the NHM in London, where they supposedly have the largest collection in the world of this group of Noctuoidea.
        I'm beginning to get a sneaking suspicion that it might in the end prove useful to collect a few specimen for proper identification (it just might be something special/new). For one thing I'm sure that Rob would love to see specimen of this species and if we can put a proper name to it your images would likely be the only/first images on the internet for that species, so imho quite useful to get it right.
        Will be continued ...
        Cheers, Arp Posted 7 years ago, modified 7 years ago
        
        Pudding4brains
        
        Lion
        
        Alberto Zilli replied today. He checked against their collection and says that this is good match for a female Ceryx claremonti (Heylaerts, 1890). They seem to have a large series from Java, prompting him to suspect that the species must be "exceedingly common" on Java, but he also sees quite some "variability" making him mention that the species might need to be worked out better (revised).
        For now, it is all classified under this one species name, so I think we will do fine by naming it Ceryx claremonti (s.l.?). I did not readily find other images of this species, so your images may be the first on the internet with that name on them :o) Posted 7 years ago
        
        Pudding4brains
        
        Lion
        
        I've looked up the original description (as Syntomis claremontii) from Heylaerts.
        https://archive.org/stream/annalesdelasoci1890unse#page/n209/mode/1up
        This sort of comforts my hurt feelings about not even having the genus right, as Heylaerts in his very first sentence says:
        "Ressemble un peu par l'aspect général à Syntomis diaphana [today Caeneressa diaphana]. mais elle est beaucoup plus petite." :o)
        Also, as the original description uses the spelling wit double ii in claremontii, I'm assuming this should be the currently valid spelling too, despite it having been corrected to claremonti in later publications. Posted 7 years ago, modified 7 years ago
        
        Pudding4brains
        
        Lion
        
        Just a note to add: Today Rob de Vos sent me an image of Heylaert's type specimen in the Naturalis collection. It is a copula and the female corresponds very, very nicely to the photographs uploaded here. Apparently there is some sexual dimorfism in the pattern on the abdomen, with the female having the distinctly triangular pattern and the male less so. Posted 7 years ago

Pudding4brains

Lion

Current checklists for India of Amata (and lookalike genera from the tribe Syntomini, such as maybe Caeneressa or maybe Trichaeta - again: I'm useless with these) will include some 50-70 species (almost 50 in Amata alone). Anyone serious about trying to ID these from photo should at the very least make a point of:

- making sure it is an Amata and not something close (check wing veination and spurs on the tibia)

- filtering out all species already recorded for the pertinent area

- getting IDing info for those (from proper keys or descriptions) that images can be checked against

- assembling a library of reference images from reliable sources for all of these species, including as much individual variablity as possible.

This will still leave some room for error considering (among other things) that you may just have recorded a species new for a region or an aberration or some such.

One fairly recent (2014) checklist I could find quickly is in the zoological survey of India (Amata starting on pg.59):
http://faunaofindia.nic.in/PDFVolumes/occpapers/367/index.pdf

A good reference for images is the glorious "Moths of Borneo" site. It may very well _not_ have images for all species known from India, but the images they do have should at least be correctly named:
http://www.mothsofborneo.com/part-6/syntominae/syntominae-1.php

As for proper keys, I'm afraid I don't have any clear advise (nothing collected here), but at least it would seem that the old revision by Obraztsov (1966) is still often referenced:
Obraztsov, N.S. (1966) Die palaearktischen Amata-Arten (Lepidoptera, Ctenuchidae). – Veröffentlichungen der Zoologischen Staatssammlung München, vol.10, pp.1-383.
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/28238789#page/13/mode/1up
http://biostor.org/reference/109622

This PDF holds some clues to the identification of closely related genera, but probably incomplete:
http://faunaofindia.nic.in/PDFVolumes/records/077/01-04/0007-0023.pdf

It may also help to browse through some newer publications, even if not for the same area, as these may or may not be educational in demonstrating what is currently considered to be useful in identifications. Here are some:

India: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292499534_Taxonomic_studies_on_four_species_of_Amata_Fabricius_Lepidoptera_Arctiidae_Syntominae_from_India_with_special_reference_to_their_external_genitalia

Iran: https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/NEVA_29_0105-0107.pdf

Israel: http://www.soceurlep.eu/uploads/nota/bd30_2/09_Witt.pdf Posted 7 years ago, modified 7 years ago