Noctuidae - Condicinae - Condicini

 

 

Ogdoconta cinereola (Guenée)

Placodes cinereola Guenée, 1852, Histoire Naturelle des Insectes. Species General des Lépidoptéres, 6:316, pl. 15, fig. 1.

Miana atomaria Walker, 1865, List of the Specimens of Lepidopterous Insects in the Collection of the British Museum, 32:675.

Diagnosis: Ogdoconta cinereola is the only North American species of the genus found outside of the southwestern U.S.-Mexico region. It occurs abundantly in the eastern half of the United States and southeastern Canada. The species is easy to identify. The forewing is brown and the subterminal region between the postmedial and subterminal lines is suffused with pink. The median and basal areas are minutely speckled with white. The antemedial line is an obscure, scalloped white line. The reniform spot and orbicular spot are obscure but often discernable as fine white lines. The claviform spot is absent. The postmedial line is a white, almost straight, oblique line. The subterminal line is marked primarily as a brown shade terminating the pink suffusion of the subterminal region. The hindwing is suffused with brown. The male genitalia are not particularly remarkable, but this appears to be the only species in the genus with a clasper-like structure near the junction or the saccular and cucullar regions of the valve. The vesica has a complete coil in it, although this feature is shared with other species. Likewise there is a complete coil in the appendix bursae of the female genitalia.

Distribution: This species has a wide distribution in the eastern half of North America. It occurs from southern Ontario and Quebec in the north to southern Florida in the south. The species stretches northward into the Great Plains as far north as Nebraksa and Iowa. It has not yet been collected in the Dakotas or Manitoba. The species occurs throughout most of Texas except for the western counties and stretches as far south as the state of Coahuila in northern Mexico. There is little or no individual or geographical variation in this species.

The adult is generally common. Adults have been collected throughout the summer months from May to September in the north to as early as April and as late as October in Texas and Florida.

Identification Quality: Excellent

Larva: The larval material in the USNM is now too faded to give a good description of the markings and coloration of the larvae, so I am repeating Crumb's original description.
"Body green flecked with white, dorsum usually suffused with white. Strong, sharply defined white lines middorsally and ventral of II. Spiracles white, included in the subventral white stripe which may be margined dorsally by a purplish red line. Setigerous tubercles small to moderately large, but not conspicuous, slightly elevated, white. Head greenish with white lateral lines margining the front and faint traces of darker submedian arcs and lateral lines, labrum white."

Foodplants: Crumb (1956) records the larva from Ambrosia artemisiifolia (ragweed) and A. trifida (giant ragweed), in the Asteraceae. There are also adults in the USNM reared from Helianthus annuus L. (sunflower) and "artichoke". It is not clear from the labels whether the latter record is the true artichoke or the Jerusalem artichoke.

 

Ogdoconta cinereola

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