10 Apr 2015 MORE ID INSIGHTS

The inestimable Peter Hendry sometimes refers a tricky moth to a lepidopterist contact at the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation). Following an exchange of emails he identified one moth and regarding another made the intriguing point that it was a well known species on the mountain and in Lamington National Park but had not been named. The first photo of the moth he identified showed tuft scales on the hind wings the like of which I hadn’t recalled seeing before. Once he received photos of the whole moth and a close up the head facing the camera, he was able to identify it. In so doing he made two fascinating points. One was that the scale tufts were much less evident in a long dead specimen in a collection than on a live moth and the other was that the species has been associated with mangroves overseas and he wondered where mine came from. Peter replied that there are mangroves in nearby rivers.