Jump to content
Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia

Creatonotos gangis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Species of arctiine moth in South East Asia and Australia
Creatonotos gangis
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Superfamily: Noctuoidea
Family: Erebidae
Subfamily: Arctiinae
Genus: Creatonotos
Species:
C. gangis
Binomial name
Creatonotos gangis
Synonyms [1]
  • Phalaena gangis Linnaeus
  • Creatonotos continuatus Moore
  • Noctua interrupta Linnaeus
  • Creatonotos flavoabdominalis Bang-Haas

Creatonotos gangis, the Baphomet moth,[2] [3] is a species of arctiine moth in South East Asia and Australia. It was described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1763 Centuria Insectorum . It is often listed as a synonym of Creatonotos interrupta ,[4] but the identity is unclear.

Description and life cycle

[edit ]

Adults have white hindwings and brown forewings, each with a dark streak, and a wingspan of 4 cm (1.6 in).[1] The abdomen is red or, more rarely, yellow.[1] Males have four large, grey-colored coremata behind them, which can exceed the length of the abdomen when inflated.[1]

An adult male Creatonotos gangis moth with its four coremata inflated, resembling odd tentacles or worms emerging from the end of the abdomen, covered with long hairs. In this individual, each one of its coremata is about half to two-thirds the length of the moth's abdomen. The moth's wings are spread, showing its bright red abdomen with black spots running down the center.
An adult male Creatonotos gangis moth with its coremata inflated. This male has relatively short coremata.

The eggs are yellow and round, and are laid in rows on the leaves of food plants. The caterpillars are brown hairy animals with a yellow stripe along the back, with a polyphagous diet,[1] known as a minor pest which feeds on groundnuts, rice, ragi, sorghum, Pennisetum americanum , coffee, sweet potato, and lucerne crops.[5]

In The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma: Moths Vol. II, the species (listed as C. interrupta) is described as follows:

Antennae minutely ciliated in both sexes. Head, thorax and fore wing pale pinkish ochreous. Palpi and legs smoky black, the femora yellow; a broad dorsal band on thorax; abdomen crimson above, with dorsal and lateral series of black spots. Fore wing with a broad black fascia below median nervure; two black spots at end of cell, and a broad streak beyond the lower angle. Hind wing pale or dark fuscous; some specimens with a sub-marginal series of black spots. The variety continuatus has additional black streaks on the fore wing below the costa, in cell, above inner margin, and in the marginal interspaces, but all the intergrades occur. Larva black, sparsely clothes with long hairs; head marked with white; a yellow dorsal line with a series of orange spots on it; prolegs pale.

— The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma: Moths Vol. II[6]

Distribution

[edit ]

Creatonotos gangis lives in South East Asia and parts of Australia.[7] Its Asian distribution includes eastern Indonesia, India, Iran, Sri Lanka, China, Japan, Thailand and New Guinea.[1] In Australia, it is restricted to northern parts of Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland, extending as far south as Mackay.[8]

Ecology

[edit ]

Adult males secrete the pheromone hydroxydanaidal in order to attract mates. The amount produced, and the size of the coremata which produce it, are however dependent on the diet that the moth experienced as a caterpillar. If the larval diet contained pyrrolizidine alkaloids, then the coremata become large and the male will release up to 400 micrograms (0.4 milligrams) of hydroxydanaidal, but if it does not, then the coremata do not grow large and no scent is produced.[9]

The larvae of C. gangis can cause extensive damage to the foliage of pomegranate trees.[7]

See also

[edit ]

References

[edit ]
  1. ^ a b c d e f Don Herbison-Evans & Stella Crossley (July 7, 2024). "Creatonotos gangis (Linnaeus, 1763)". Lepidoptera Larvae of Australia. Archived from the original on September 1, 2024. Retrieved February 2, 2025.
  2. ^ "Baphomet Moth (Creatonotos gangis)". iNaturalist. Archived from the original on 3 December 2020. Retrieved 2 February 2025.
  3. ^ Sourakov, Andrei; Chadd, Rachel Warren (26 April 2022). The Lives of Moths: A Natural History of Our Planet's Moth Life . Princeton University Press. p. 50. doi:10.2307/j.ctv1z2hmk7. ISBN 978-0-691-23036-8. JSTOR 10.2307/j.ctv1z2hmk7.
  4. ^ Savela, Markku. "Creatonotos interrupta (Linnaeus, 1767)". Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms. Retrieved January 14, 2019.
  5. ^ "Creatonotos gangis (L.)". ICAR-National Bureau of Agricultural Insect Resources. Retrieved 23 July 2016.
  6. ^ Hampson, G. F. (1894). The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma: Moths. Vol. II. Taylor and Francis. pp. 26–27. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.100745 – via Biodiversity Heritage Library.
  7. ^ a b D. Holland, K. Hatib & I. Bar-Ya'akov (2009). "Pomegranate: botany, horticulture, breeding". In Jules Janick (ed.). Horticultural Reviews. Vol. 35. John Wiley and Sons. pp. 127–191. ISBN 978-0-470-38642-2.
  8. ^ I. F. B. Common (1990). "Noctuoidea". Moths of Australia. Brill Publishers. pp. 417–469. ISBN 978-90-04-09227-3.
  9. ^ Jeffrey B. Harborne (1993). "Plant toxins and their effects on animals". Introduction to Ecological Biochemistry (4th ed.). Gulf Professional Publishing. pp. 71–103. ISBN 978-0-12-324686-8.

Further reading

[edit ]

AltStyle によって変換されたページ (->オリジナル) /