Eulepidotis persimilis - Eulepidotis Moth / Mariposa-Eulepidotis (Guenée, 1852)

Lepidoptera: Bombycina: Noctuoidea: Erebidae: Eulepidotinae: Eulepidotini

Length as seen in the picture: ~1,7cm.
Width as seen in the picture: ~2,1cm.

Date: 19th of May, 2018 at 10:38:08pm
Location: Brazil, Ceará, Fortaleza (Lat: -3.75, Long: -38.51, 16th floor)

Eulepidotis persimilis is a moth in the order Lepidoptera, subdivision Heterocera, superfamily Noctuoidea, family Erebidae, subfamily Eulepidotinae and tribe Eulepidotini.

The moth's patterning gives the impression that the head is at the rear end. The moth is mostly white with a downcurved head. The thorax is also white. The forewings' dorsal view contain two brownish-golden bands; one about halfway through them and another one below the first. Below the second band, a brownish-golden patch can be seen with a black irregular stripe near the outer margin at the tip of the forewings and another just below it at the submarginal area. The hindwings are mostly white and slowly changes into a light golden hue, culminating in a brownish-golden spot at the tip of them. This spot contains a black spot that is reminiscent of an eye. Two small filaments can be seen that resemble antennae. These two traits along with the gradual yellow above the brownish-golden spot that resembles a pronotum may fool predators into thinking that those spots are compound eyes and that the filaments are antennae, indicating erroneously where the head is located and attacking it instead of the true head, possibly resulting in minimum damage to the moth. The downcurved head may also be part of this mechanism by hiding more vital parts. The bold brownish-golden bands may function as "disruptive patterning", breaking up natural lines and cause the various parts of an organism to more or less blend with a background's random clutter, depending where the moth is.

http://www.backyardnature.net/n/10/100124.htm

A synonym includes: Palindia persimilis (Guenée, 1852)

It measured approximately 1,7cm in length and 2,1cm in width as if seen in the picture.

Eulepidotis once belonged to the Calpinae but were transferred into Eulepitodinae. "DNA results by Zahiri et al., 2010, suggest that the Eulepidotini and Panopodini are not clades within Erebidae, so the Eulepidotini was raised to subfamily status and includes the tribes Eulepidotini and Panopodini. The female genitalia have the ostial opening in the membrane between the seventh and eighth abdominal sternite, not displaced anteriorly into the seventh sternite as it is in many tribes of the Erebidae, such as Euclidiini, Phaphilini and Ophiusini. We place it on the list after these tribes because males of Eulepidotini and Panopodini have the same form of long mid-tibial hair pencils arising from a groove covered with flat translucent white scales"; differently structured, Eulepidotis have hair pencil on the hind tibia.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.886.3604&rep=rep1&type=pdf

These are some of the host plants of three different species within Eulepidotis: http://direct.biostor.org/reference/56976

The plants are, for E. merricki, Melicoccus bijugatus (Jacq.) (Sapindaceae) ("Spanish lime"); for E. juncida, Inga fagifolia ((L.) Wildd.) (Leguminosae (Mimosoideae); some place them into Fabaceae) ("ingá-mirim" - PTBR); for E. superior, Quararibea asterolepis (Pitt.) (Malvaceae: Bombacoideae) ("cinco-dedos"... - PTBR).

More informations on the species above with larval morphological details can also be found in the same link.

Apparently, they can be found in Brazil, Costa Rica and Honduras.

I do not know any further info on the species persimilis as it is currently undergoing revision according to this study, in which they mention that a full report of the occurence of these two species, Eulepidotis dominicata and Eulepidotis persimilis, are being prepared by Ed Knudson and associates: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3234417/

http://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/sci/bio/life/insecta/lepidoptera/ditrysia/noctuoidea/noctuidae/calpinae/eulepidotis/index.html

https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=941104#null

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eulepidotis_persimilis

http://eol.org/pages/556637/overview

http://www.catalogueoflife.org/col/details/species/id/b800d65c27901536b35b613aa3352976