Hallo zusammen,

heute Nacht habe ich Peter Hall angefunkt, und schon ist seine Antwort eingetroffen. Bereits in der Anfrage habe ich um seine Erlaubnis gebeten, seine Antwort im Lepiforum publizieren zu dürfen. Er hat sie erteilt. Nun sein vollständiger Text. Die Fett- und Rotschrift ist von mir nachformatiert als Hinweis auf besonders Wichtiges.

Hi all,

last night I contacted Peter Hall by his website contact form, and he replied immediately. I also requested his permission to publish his reply in Lepiforum. He agreed. Here is his complete e-mail. I added some formattings in bold and red in order to outline most important matters.

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Hi Jurgen,

Firstly thank you for your kind words regarding our Moth Dissection website and please encourage any of your contributors to supply good quality dissection images to help boost the coverage, especially those species not found in the UK. We are keen to have this resource cover Europe. It is different to Lepiforum and I think the 2 sites complement each other well. I use Lepiforum often and like it very much so congratulations to you as well. Only a few days ago I uploaded Ocnerostoma piniariella to our website and used your examples of saccus versus aedeagus length to produce a nice male dissection image. And of course credited Lepiforum with this: https://mothdissection.co.uk/species.php?Tx=Ocnerostoma_piniariella

You will have seen my female comparison image no doubt by now and searching for differences. This came about because I spotted an error in Pierce & Metcalfe and wanted to provide the correct images. I also found separating rivata from alternata often difficult in worn specimens. With luck I am good friends with Martin Townsend, author of the main moth Field Guide here, and I will often send potential rivata photos of adults over to him as he's is much more experienced in identifying these adult moths than I am. For me, to date, I have never caught either galiata or rivata yet and the comparison image is based on single examples sent to me to provide this image (galiata and rivata from Martin Townsend). so any possible differences are based on very limited examples

Both Hausmann and my comparison image suggest that the large elongated sclerite (as Hausmann calls them) in the bursa seems to stay slightly wider and more robust towards the posterior end (possibly straighter?) for alternata, but how reliable this is, I do not as yet know. If correct those nice female dissection images you sent a link for implies alternata as does the adult image to my eyes. It may be that the female structures are too close as in the male ones. https://mothdissection.co.uk/species.php?Tx=Epirrhoe_alternata. We definitely both need more examples I think.

For V.G. Friedmar, I will quote from Waring and Townsend and perhaps you can translate for him. "Rivata: easily confused with alternata, some examples of which are very similar, so care is needed. Rivata is generally slightly larger, the white cross band beyond the central band on forewing is broader and the thin grey line running through it is very faint or largely absent, although sometimes stronger near leading edge. Also, central white band on hindwing is broader and has no thin grey line". If you look at my comparison image of adults on the Dissection website, 2 of each, this is clearly shown and the hindwing especially clear.

(Für z. B. Friedmar zitiere ich aus Waring & Townsend, vielleicht können Sie für ihn übersetzen. "Rivata: wird leicht mit alternata verwechselt, manche von ihnen sind sehr ähnlich, deshalb ist Vorsicht vonnöten. Rivate ist generell etwas größer, die weiße Querbinde hinter der Zentralbinde auf dem Vorderflügel ist breiten und die dünne graue Linie, die dazwischen verläuft, ist sehr fein oder weitgehend fehlend, obwohl manchmal stärker nahe der führenden (Anm. JR: „führenden“ verstehe ich in diesem Zusammenhang nicht, Costa???) Kante. Außerdem ist die weiße Zentralbinde auf dem Hinterflügel breiter and ohne dünne graue Linie" Wenn Sie mein Vergleichsbild der Imagines auf der Dissection-Website betrachten), zwei von jeder [Art, Anm. JR], ist das klar ersichtlich, und auf dem Hinterflügel ist das besonders klar.)

By all means publish this in Lepiforum if you think it at all useful. and if I can help again, please e-mail me.

with best wishes
Peter

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All the best / alles Gute

Jürgen