Smerinthus cerisyi vs. ophthalmica

[kevinkk]

I posted my picture of the copuled pair of Smerinthus on Inaturalist, called them cerisyi, and now there is a question if they are ophthalmica.
My books have no mention of ophthalmica, apparently one of those evolving taxons.

Because of the variabilty of Smerinthus, it's not an easy call. Seems like the larva are different, now I have to find one of my larva pics and see if it is any help.

Even trying the information on the web just makes it more frustrating, I don't like doubting my first id, any opinions? Give up? From what I found on the web, only males can be visually identified, and females are so similar it takes DNA.

[58chevy]

I had never heard of ophthalmica until it was mentioned on this website. When was it derermined to be a new species & who made the determination?

[kevinkk]

had never heard of ophthalmica until it was mentioned on this website. When was it derermined to be a new species & who made the determination?

Yes, I have seen one of our members in Calif. advertising ophthalmica this season, and in the past. I saw a notation and the year 2002 I think it was, other than that, I have no Idea, maybe I'll email the other individual and ask them what they think.
Only cerisyi is mentioned in any of my books, including the 2 printed by USDA for Oregon forestry, written by Paul Hammond & Jeffrey Miller,
June 2000, the 2nd book printed in 2002/2003, maybe too late to change ?

Not everyone reads the forum and the classifieds both.

[Chuck]

I caught a Smerinthus last year that doesn’t match any of the known species. It sounds like another of the increasingly common complexes.

[eurytides]

Check out the info on the PNW moths website.

[kevinkk]

Check out the info on the PNW moths website.

You must mean the website I have bookmarked and forgot about.

From the pictures there I have misidentified the moth and it is ophthalmica. I don't understand, I have seen all that before, have 4 other specimens,
2 wild caught as adults, and 2 I found as larva at the house here in Lincoln City. Now, besides having to learn to spell a new name, I'll look at my printed materials, in the books, the pictures look different, which is probably why I am where I am now. I'll email the 3 people I sent ova to.

thank you for pointing this out eurytides

OK,I just realized, the moth is not in my books so,if I had used the web for id, I'll try picture search. interesting
stuff.

[kevinkk]

I had never heard of ophthalmica until it was mentioned on this website. When was it derermined to be a new species & who made the determination?

I was just told that the change was made in 2010 by Schmidt and Anweiler. I didn't really find anything difinitive on the web.

So, apparently the species ophthalmica was described in 1855, so from what I have think I've learned here, is that while the species was described,
it wasn't given full status until recently? It is a frustration that ophthalmica isn't mentioned as a species in any of my books, I presume that if any more
PNW lep books are published, they would include the species so other people wouldn;t mistakenly call it cerisyi.

[eurytides]

I have not had a chance to look up the paper elevating ophthalmica to species status. However, in the Hawkmoth book by Tuttle, page 115, he states “Comstock and Dammers (1943b) conclusively established through rearing that ophthalmica is a morph of cerisyi.”

The plot thickens…

[adamcotton]

The paper is available here:

Greg Pohl, Gary Anweiler, Christian Schmidt, Norbert Kondla 2010. An annotated list of the Lepidoptera of Alberta, Canada
https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/216 ... pdf/280073

Here's what they say on p. 502:
A18. Smerinthus ophthalmica Boisduval, 1855 REVISED STATUS
We arrange the AB populations of Smerinthus “cerisyi” into two species, the southern prairie–
mountain (Crowsnest Pass southward) populations as S. ophthalmica (type locality: San
Francisco, CA) and the boreal–mountain populations as S. cerisyi Kirby (type locality: North
America; limited to New York State by Eitschberger (2002)). Rothschild and Jordan (1903)
revised ophthalmica to a subspecies of S. cerisyi, and Hodges (1971) treated it as a straight
synonym of S. cerisyi; the latter taxonomic view has generally been followed since (Tuttle
2007). A notable exception is the work of Eitschberger (2002), who raised three taxa (astarte
Strecker, vancouverensis Butler and ophthalmica) from synonymy under S. cerisyi¸ in addition to
considering two specimens from the Columbia Icefi elds, AB, as possibly representing yet another
species. Eitschberger (2002) qualifi ed his taxonomic decisions by rather vague statements like
“Based on genitalic structure, clearly a good species” (Eitschberger 2002, page 94), while failing
to examine specimens of both astarte and vancouverensis from the regions of the type localities
(CO and Vancouver Island, BC, respectively). Given the variation in genitalic structure in
cerisyi (sensu lato) (BCS, unpublished data) and the lack of diagnostic genitalic features, as
noted by Rothschild and Jordan (1903), Eitschberger’s (2002) work is underwhelming at best,
and the taxonomic changes pertaining to North American taxa were appropriately countered
by Tuttle (2007).
Despite the shortcomings of Eitschberger’s (2002) interpretation of the cerisyi group, it
appears he was partially correct (although for the wrong reasons). Relative to cerisyi, ophthalmica
is distinguished by a pale brown phenotype prevalent in prairie populations (which often cooccur
with darker phenotypes; the pale phenotype does not occur in cerisyi), a less scalloped
margin on the forewing, less scalloped and “smoother” postmedian lines on the forewing, a
sharper angle of the antemedian line, and narrower serrations of the male antennae, as well as
surprisingly large mitochondrial DNA divergence (in the cox1 gene) between AB populations of
these taxa, averaging about 3.5%. Th e phenotypic variation present in this group has previously
been assumed to represent clinal intraspecifi c variation from western into boreal phenotypes.
Th is appears to be the case only in the central foothills region (Crowsnest Pass to Banff ), where
many specimens are phenotypically intermediate, presumably indicating a contact or hybrid
zone between the western and boreal taxa. However, the broad geographic transition from the
boreal to the prairie region (i.e., aspen parkland) shows no such intergrades, and an abrupt
change occurs from cerisyi phenotypes in the parkland and central prairies to ophthalmica in the
southern prairie. In the prairie region, cerisyi occurs south to at least Tolman Bridge Provincial
Recreation Area and east to Nevis, whereas typical ophthalmica occurs northwest to at least
Dinosaur Provincial Park, a distance of about 60 km to the nearest known cerisyi populations.
Collections from intervening areas would be very informative. Th ere is no indication that
ophthalmica is an ecologically induced phenotype, since only typical cerisyi are present in the
hot, arid badlands of both the Red Deer River in central AB and the Peace River Canyon, both
regions known for the occurrence of typically Great Plains species. Th e phenotypic variation in
CA and CO populations of ophthalmica was summarized by Comstock and Dammers (1943),
who documented the pale tan and brown form occurring among siblings. Th eir interpretation
of phenotypic variation extended to CO populations (astarte), and they accordingly treated
ophthalmica, astarte, and saliceti Boisduval as subspecies of cerisyi. Th is situation has been cited
as further proof of ophthalmica and cerisyi being conspecifi c (Tuttle 2007). Examination of
specimens from the Rocky Mountains in CO shows that they are consistent with ophthalmica
(sensu novo), but are not the same taxon as the boreal (nominal) cerisyi, which was not examined
by Comstock and Dammers (1943). Th e taxonomy and biogeography of this group is in need of
additional study, as it seems clear that more than one species is involved. It is indeed possible that
the prairie taxon is a species separate from both the southern mountain and boreal populations,
related to or conspecifi c with saliceti. Antennal structure, wing phenotype, and mitochondrial
DNA indicate a closer relationship of these southern AB populations to saliceti than to cerisyi
(BCS, unpublished data); the extremely variable genitalic structure has so far not provided useful
characters, but AB would certainly be the place to study this fascinating and beautiful group.

[eurytides]

Adam beat me to it, was just about to post the same paper. Anyway, very interesting read.

[kevinkk]

Here's what they say on p. 502:

Thank you very much for the synopsis. Page 502?!
I have a copy of Tuttle's book as well, didn't really explain much except the species is variable

[eurytides]

Yeah the paper was basically a checklist of Alberta moths….it was more a book than paper. 549 pages total!

[adamcotton]

Yeah the paper was basically a checklist of Alberta moths….

and butterflies.

Adam.

[adamcotton]

Has anyone sequenced the two species to see whether there is a genetic difference?

Adam.

[eurytides]

In the paper, they said there was a 3.5% divergence in mtDNA.

[adamcotton]

In the paper, they said there was a 3.5% divergence in mtDNA.

Oops, yes they did! I didn't read all that text, just copied and pasted it for you

[eurytides]

I read all the text, but was too slow to post, ha.

[adamcotton]

Thank you very much for the synopsis. Page 502?!

Kevin, if you haven't already done so, you can download the whole 'paper' from the link I posted with the text, it's only 2MB+ despite having so many pages.

they said there was a 3.5% divergence in mtDNA.

That's more than enough of a difference to suggest that they must be separate species. I see from the text above that both occur in Alberta, but perhaps in different habitats.

Adam.

[Chuck]

Here is the range map for ophthalmica https://www.inaturalist.org/observation ... _id=486567

and for cerisyi https://www.inaturalist.org/observation ... _id=119492

You can see there is some overlap, but surprisingly limited. And apparently ophthalmica is pretty well know to iNat people.

[kevinkk]

Interesting- Adam ,I did download the entire work.

iNaturalist has been interesting, that pair of moths was my first post, I suppose it's the amount of observers that show how common a species is. It's given me some good ideas for new hunting grounds.
I did learn something from the experience. Check all your sources, a simple picture search would have correctly identified the moth, even though every book I have only mentions cerisyi, when I first saw the pictures of cerisyi and ophthalmica side by side, they look visually different, and I realize there is variability, but even so.
The distribution maps are curious, looks like the moths were stopped by the mountainsg