Owlet Moths of Hawai'i (Noctuidae) I

Brief description

Noctuidae is the largest known family in the Order Lepidoptera. With a world-wide distribution, this family encompasses over 35,000 known species out of a possible 100,000. Given the number of species, it is of no surprise that the family varies in behavior, morphology, etc. However, most Noctuidae are dull in color, fly at night and are attracted to nectar-rich flowers. What they lack in color, they make up for in their amazing ability to feed on specific poisonous plants that would normally kill an insect. Some noctuids are also preyed upon by bats, however, many have high auditory sensitivity, resulting in their ability to quickly respond to bat echolocation calls. In Hawai'i, the hoary bat selects for the endemic Haliophyle euclidias because of the moth's poor auditory abilities. This species experiences high predation as a result of having shorter detection distances for bats, compared to other endemic, potential prey species. Please help transcribe the University of Hawai'i's interesting collection of Noctuidae!This expedition of 577 tasks is fully transcribed and validated.

Notes

Includes: point occurrence data