Pseudoclanis - moths I get confused by (G)
Pseudoclanis of southern Africa
Photo credits: P. postica @craigpeter @ricky_taylor @qgrobler | P. diana @laurent_h @petererb @wolfachim | P. molitor @qgrobler
Notes:
- A lot of species were split from postica and described by one Ulf Eitschberger. All from a single locality in the Eastern Cape. And published in his very own journal which does not appear to be available on the net. These are allessandroi, asantei, joannoui (odd distribution on Afromoths - ZA and Gambia - hmmm...), kruegeri, pseudoasantei, staudei. Kitching has sunk them all back into postica, Afromoths has not. For my own personal opinion, they're all postica and I'm leaving it like that for now.
- It is entirely possible that diana is merely an ecomorph of postica. It has been bounced in and out of postica over the millenia and will no doubt keep bouncing for a while. Only found in Namibia and Angola.
- diana has a plain form like postica but I couldn't find a nice pic on iNat.
- postica is widespread over sA from about George northwards and tropical Africa. There is even a record on iNat in Cape Town (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/121098128) which is a big range extension as far as I know. Possibly because Celtis trees (caterpillar host-plant) are planted in gardens everywhere.
- postica is a highly variable species! The photos here show only some of the variation.
-
molitor occurs in NE South Africa and into tropical Africa.
Thank you to the photographers!
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