Pine Buck Moth

I agree with Ryan's determination as Coloradia casanovai. I wish permission to post the images, credited to you to my casanovai page on World's Largest Saturniidae Site. Please send personal email to [email protected] Bill Oehlke

I want to mention that I was wrong when I said specimens of female Coloradia casanovai may not exist yet, because one is figured in Lemaire 2002 which matches very closely to your female here. Additionally this species only appears to be known from the vacinity of San Cristóbal de las Casas. I will mention this sighting to Bill Oehlke who runs the World's Largest Saturniidae Site as I am sure he'd love to get your permission to post these lovely photos on his website.

Hi Lauren, I am a student at Cornell University, my research interest is Lepidoptera taxonomy, focusing on Mimallonidae. Also Saturniidae (especially Ceratocampinae and Hemileucinae) are of special interest.

Pardon the various grammatical errors in my previous response, that's what I get for trying such a message on my phone!

Coloradia oaxacensis and C. casanovai are very similar and essentially indistinguishable, the newer species, C. oaxacensis was described based on DNA differences from other Coloradia, a method that has proved dubious in many respects (at least in recent years for Saturniidae). Regardless of the difficultly in distinguishing the two species, I determined yours as C. casanovai because C. casanovai is the more senior name, and if C. oaxacensis proves not to be a valid species, than C. casanovai would be proper name for any south Mexican Coloradia resembling this individual pending other evidence. Additionally, when there are countless species described based on DNA evidence it becomes very difficult to reliable determine any specimen without performing the same DNA sequencing techniques, and since this simply is not feasible, one must rely on type localities. So, if this individual was from Oaxaca, at the type locality of C. oaxacensis, I would feel more comfortable determining it as such. But since this individual is from much closer to the C. casanovai locality, and resembles both species, I went with C. casanovai. I also want to add that you have a here a female. I have not seen images of (specimens may actually not exist yet) a female of either species, so if this individual does not match either photo you have seen so far, that may be a reason why.

This is Coloradia casanovai, the first live individual I have seen. Excellent!

Terrific find! I’ve not been able to find a photo with the pink so vividly exhibited as in photo three, but I’m almost certain it is a species Coloradia.