Amata in Australia

There are 39 species of Amata moths currently described in Australia. So far, we've detected they live in every state and territory, except for Tasmania (C'mon guys, you can do it!).

Here are some stats for you: As of May 2024, we have 4321 occurrences on the Atlas of Living Australia, covering 39 species, and 3618 (and counting!) observations on iNaturalist, claiming to be 22 species of Amata.

So what's the problem?

Occurrences of Amata moths in Australia on the ALA

Amata are everywhere!

Except Tassie.

Amata are polyphagous, which means they eat a whole bunch of stuff. They have two generations per year, and can lay around 300+ eggs at a time - so when it's a good season, they can be prolific!

They have these classic spots and stripes that marks them out as being the charismatic 'Tiger moths', and get this - they have chemical defences to stop predators from trying to eat them! The spots and stripes work as a warning signal about their chemical defence, and we call this anti-predator defence 'Aposematism'.

Common and Successful!

Did you know moths touch butts when they mate?

Well, now you do!

The problem boils down to the fact that they all kind look the same and they're hard to tell apart. We simplify this by just calling them Tiger moths, but it's important to know who they are and where they live because knowing this could help us answer other questions about their ecology and their interactions with other community members, such as predators. What eats them? What do they eat? WHY DON'T WE KNOW THIS ALREADY?? They're so common and we've known about them since we arrived in this country!

Amata phepsalotis wing

Amata nigriceps wing

Amata aperta wing

So, how do we (I) fix the current state of confusion? By using systematics, that's how!

Integrative systematics combines traditional morphological taxonomy (like, pulling out the genitals and describing their shape. It's weird, but also awesome!) and a whole lot of high-res imaging, with current molecular methods, such as low-coverage whole genome sequencing. With these powers combined, we can perform an analysis called species delimitation - essentially, telling the species apart from each other - and present our best hypothesis about which moth is who!

Then, I'll create an identification key for anyone to use to help everyone ID any moths they see, using characteristics that hopefully stand out. Sounds simple, right?!

Differences between individuals

I raised these Amata nigriceps moths from eggs from the same mother, in my kitchen and fed them rose petals. You can see differences in the sizes of their wings, the number of spots on the fore-wing, and even in the amount of orange in the spots.

Differences between species

There are at least four species of Amata in this photo, and some Eressa.

Also, please don't come at me for my pinning, I know its inconsistent, but I was on a tight time schedule and I filled two of these boxes and then another three that were double sided, ok?!

What can we learn about moth biodiversity from genital dissections?

Sometimes in taxonomy it is necessary to look at genital characteristics to tell cryptic species apart. For moths, its a pretty traditional technique and uses some hectic chemicals to dissect them properly so we can see the characteristics needed.

Here are the male genitals from an Amata nigriceps, just removed from the end of the abdomen.

Once the genitals are removed, we stain them so we can better see the different features. The blue wispy tissue is attached to the aedeagus (the moth's phallus), and we separate these from the rest of the genitals for imaging.

Lastly, we spread the male claspers (they hold on to the female during mating) and seize them into place so we can put them on a glass slide for imaging - they can be preserved on the slide pretty much forever and museums hold them in their collections for future research.

This is how we can use this technique to understand biodiversity better - by being able to tell species apart, we can better estimate how many species of something we have!

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