| 词条 | Thysania agrippina |
| 释义 |
| image = Thysania agrippina 0001b L.D.jpg | image_caption = White witch moth Thysania agrippina | taxon = Thysania agrippina | authority = (Cramer, 1776) | synonyms =
}}Thysania agrippina is a species of moth in the Erebidae family. The most commonly accepted common name is white witch ("polilla bruja blanca"). Other common names include mariposa emperador, ghost moth, great grey witch, and great owlet moth. Thysania agrippina is of interest as a competitor for title of "largest insect." This may be true by the measure of wingspan--a Brazilian specimen with a wingspan of almost {{convert|30|cm|abbr=on}} appears to hold the record.[1] The Atlas moth and Hercules moth, however, have greater wing areas.[1] The white witch occurs from Uruguay to Mexico, and appears as a stray as far north as Texas in the U.S.[2] Collection dates shows no discernible pattern with respect to location or season.[3] HistoryOne story of the derivation of the common name: early naturalists collected specimens of birds and bats with shotguns. An enormous darting flyer high in the canopy was a tempting target. Firing a cloud of pellets at a white witch didn’t necessarily bring it down, however, because the body is small relative to the wing area. The moth would sail along, an unkillable witch[4]. The moth is of historical interest as the subject of a well known painting by the artist Maria Sibylla Merian. Merian was an insightful naturalist that advanced 18th century understanding of insect life cycles. However her depiction of the white witch life cycle is inconsistent with the known biology. Ecology, Natural HistoryGiven the enormous geographic range of the adult, and observations that date back 300 years, it is striking that the immature life stages of this species have never been documented (notwithstanding the erroneous Merian painting). Long migratory flight is likely, given that the close relatives Thysania zenobia (the owl moth) and Ascalapha odorata (the black witch) are known for flights that reach far north of the host plant distributions. Based on the larval host plants recorded for the owl moth and black witch, the larval host plants for the white witch are probably also woody members of Fabaceae (subfamily Caesalpinioideae), possibly Senna and/or Cassia.[6] White Witch Watch[7] is a project led by the lepidopterist David Wagner at the University of Connecticut, seeking to identify the immature stages of the white witch. A key strategy: to obtain a gravid female and attempt rearing on likely hosts. The participants maintain a www site, and an active citizen science project on Inaturalist. Taxonomic StatusConventionally "white witch" refers to 2 very similar species of Thysania listed in the GBIF database[8]: T. agrippina, and T. pomponia (T. zenobia is a third morphologically distinct species). However, a 2016 publication[9] establishes a new species among the subset of moths previously identified as T. agrippina. Thysania winbrechiini is differentiated from T. agrippina by morphological features and DNA evidence. T. winbrechiini is further categorized as containing 2 subspecies, and the authors also define a subspecies of T. agrippina, T. agrippina siriae. A note of caution: there is a concern among taxonomists about the pace at which limited data are being used to describe new species, by authors with a penchant to publish in obscure journals[10]. That concern has been raised in the case of several hundred "Brechlin and Meister species[11]," which are often nominated on the basis of DNA alone. See also
References1. ^1 {{cite web|title=Chapter 32 — Largest Lepidopteran Wing Span |author=Hugo Kons, Jr. |publisher=University of Florida |date= 17 May 1998 |work=Book of Insect Records |url=http://ufbir.ifas.ufl.edu/chap32.htm |archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20080302212157/http://ufbir.ifas.ufl.edu/chap32.htm |archivedate= 1 July 2011 |accessdate= 21 October 2013 }} 2. ^[https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1wtNeOWoODK9iBJ4bjzVCQzrXqBbmIGzI&usp=sharing Distribution map of T. agrippina] 3. ^{{Cite web|url=http://whitewitchwatch.weebly.com/blog.html|title=Blog|website=White Witch Watch|language=en|access-date=2018-12-13}} 4. ^{{Cite web|url=https://www.livinginperu.com/the-hunt-for-the-white-witch-moth-106630/|title=The search for the White Witch moth|date=2015-06-12|website=Livinginperu.com|language=en-US|access-date=2018-12-13}} 5. ^Host information 6. ^{{cite web|url= http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/research/projects/hostplants/ |title= Robinson, G. S., P. R. Ackery, I. J. Kitching, G. W. Beccaloni & L. M. Hernández, 2010. HOSTS – A Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants. Natural History Museum, London.}} 7. ^{{Cite web|url=http://whitewitchwatch.weebly.com/|title=White Witch Watch|website=White Witch Watch|language=en|access-date=2018-12-13}} 8. ^{{Cite web|url=https://www.gbif.org/species/1772053|title=Thysania Dalman, 1824|website=www.gbif.org|language=en|access-date=2019-01-05}} 9. ^{{Cite journal|last=Brechlin | first=Ronald | last2=Van Schayck|first2=Eric|date=May 2016|title=Three new taxa of Thysania Dalman, 1824 allied to T. agrippina (Cramer, 1776)|url=|journal=Satsphingia|volume=9 (2)|pages=28-33|via=}} 10. ^{{Cite news|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-big-ugly-problem-heart-of-taxonomy-180964629/|title=A Few Bad Scientists Are Threatening to Topple Taxonomy|last=Jones|first=Benjamin|date=Sep 7, 2017|work=Smithsonian|access-date=}} 11. ^{{Cite web|url=https://breedingbutterflies.com/brechlin-meister-species/|title=BRECHLIN & MEISTER SPECIES|last=|first=|date=|website=https://breedingbutterflies.com|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=}} External links{{Commons category}}
4 : Thermesiini|Moths of South America|Moths described in 1776|Taxa named by Pieter Cramer |
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