What a beautiful moth!!!!

[jatishwor]

Geometridae
Geometrinae
Eucyclodes gavissima (Walker, 1861)

The pattern of white zig-zag fasciae and, more distally, spots on bright green, with blackish suffusion at the costa round the forewing postmedial is distinctive.

The species is rare.

This photo was taken at 1305 meters in the Mixed Broadleaf Tropical forest of Tsirang, Bhutan on 23rd July, 2012 by me.

Attachments:

[Fernando]

Wow! Definitely one of the most beautiful geometrids I've ever seen. Thanks for sharing!

[bluemoth]

Wow !! Ausome moth ! wish I had one of those in my collection

[ladobe]

Nice find, thanks for sharing it. A species I am not familiar with at all, so it peaks a lot of interest. And you got a picture of one, a double treat.

A new bug to me, so I did a little quick research to find out more about it. Didn't find much, just endless links with the same limited data copied over and over, including the "rare" part. Does appear to have a fairly large range though.

Rare is speculative to me, and dependent on just how much organized effort has been made for how long to find it, how many have actually been recorded. Couldn't find that for this species on-line, couldn't find much about it at all so maybe not much is known about it. An indication that maybe it is in fact rare and just has not been recorded very many times, or the opposite is true where little effort has been made to locate it or study its life history. Sure leaves a lot of interesting questions unanswered, not the least pf which is just how rare it is. Assigned in 1861 so it has been known for over 150 years, that adds to the mystery, the possibilities and to the interest to find out more.

Tinostoma smaragditis qualifies as a rare moth to me, one that has been eagerly sought many, many times by organized researchers and qualified individuals (including by me a couple of times) over a very long time period. First discovered in 1896, to date only about 15 have even been recorded in the last 116 years or so, the last in 1998 I think. A few have been reported seen by locals way back on occasion, but the species has gone through many long periods it was thought extinct. So the species has managed to hang on, until 1998 anyway. So little is known about it that it's larval food plants are not recorded. Only found in the same small pockets when it is, thought to be so limited in part due to the sever storms that plague Kaua'i and destroy habitat. Lots of questions still not answered about this species, and maybe never will be.

Hope somebody here knows more about Eucyclodes gavissima and can enlighten us with documented facts.

[evra]

There are many things that are considered to be rare, but they turn out not to be. I can think of at least 5-6 Arizona moth species that were considered rare by everyone 10 years ago, with probably fewer than 20 specimens of each ever collected. But then someone stumbles across a spot for them, or figures out their host plant, or some other quirk about their life cycle, and then pretty soon everyone knows where and when to look for them and collects that species and it's no longer considered to be rare. And almost all of these discoveries are by accident.

To me it just says how low your probability of finding the species are without any knowledge of it. I wouldn't be surprised if your Hawaiian green sphinx is actually common somewhere, probably in an inaccessible location. Or it might not be strongly attracted to lights.

Very interesting Geometrid by the way.

[jatishwor]

This species is described at " The Moths of Borneo". here is the link

www.mothsofborneo.com/part-9/geometrini/geometrini_23_1.php

[ladobe]

I wouldn't be surprised if your Hawaiian green sphinx is actually common somewhere, probably in an inaccessible location. Or it might not be strongly attracted to lights.

It would certainly surprise me greatly, and I'm sure every other serious Lepidopterist who has researched this species AND looked for it etensively over the past 100 years or so. Kaua'i is not that big and is accesable. Nor is the preferred habitat that it has always been recorded in widespread. All those recorded and seen by locals have been at the exact same specific places on Kaua'i, very small locations. It has not been recorded anywhere else on earth. Kaua'i has another, a very rare form of Danaus plexippus that is even rarer than this sphinx, and also not found on any of the other islands. The so called White Monarch's (fm nivosus) are found on some of the islands, but they are in decline due to two species of introduced Bulbul's that single them out of the nominant form for predation.

Something folks may not realize if they haven't spent years studying lepidoptera in HI or assume its like other tropical habitats that are known for so much diversity... HI with its extreme isolation has very few endemic species of lepidoptera, and very few introduced species of lepidoptera in comparison. And when I say very few, I really mean VERY FEW.

This species is described at " The Moths of Borneo". here is the link

Same info that was on all the links I found yesterday, indicating it has been recorded from multiple countries. No other information to support that though as far as numbers. Regardless it was a nice find for you.

[evra]

I'm not saying that you're wrong, it's very possible that it feeds exclusively on some kind of endemic plant that has more or less gotten wiped out. But I never accept that just because something is rarely collected, then it has to be rare.

Arizona has many similar stories of a species that's isolated to one mountain range that people intensively searched for decades and only turned up a handful of specimens, but then someone stumbles across an adult somewhere unexpected, or a larva on an unexpected plant, or something else, and pretty soon they figure out that it is locally common somewhere. Schinia zuni, Chiricahua multidentata, Caloecia entima, Rothschildia cincta, Dolbogene hartwegii, and Nemoria splendidaria are a few examples off the top of my head.

There are some truly rare moths, like Euproserpinus eurepte, which is now confined to a couple of micro colonies in central California, but we know it's biology and why it's so confined.

[anthony]

Thank you for the post. First time I ever saw this.

[lordpandarus]

I'm not into moths much but I've never seen anything like this