Yesterday I posted about the members of the Decantha genus found here in BC. Today I wanted to continue that thought and take a little step back to look at the whole family, Oecophoridae. The post’s header screenshot above lists the species that have been reported on iNat as of today.

The Annotated Taxonomic Checklist of the Lepidoptera of North America, North of Mexico published just last month by Greg Pohl and Stephen Nanz, mentions that the family has been a catch-all for many difficult to place gelechioid groups and has been subject to recent reshuffling. There are 3,400 described species, primarily in Australia. While we have a mere 12.

Species found in BC

Yup, that’s right – only 12 according to the 2015 BC checklist, 10 of which have been observed on iNat. The observed species are:

• Hofmannophila pseudospretella (Brown house moth). Suuuuuper common invasive species here in BC. As I type this, one of my cats is batting at something in the air – pretty sure it’s a brown house moth.
• Endrosis sarcitrella (White-shouldered house moth). Again, very common.
• Batia lunaris (Lesser tawny crescent). When these arrive they tend to arrive en masse on Bowen. All my observations are from June-July. Pretty little things.
• Oecophora bractella (Gold-base tubic – I’d love to know the etymology of this common name). Extremely pretty moth introduced from Europe, first caught in a light trap in Seattle in 1998 (bugguide). See paper here. I’ve only seen a single specimen of this on Bowen, photo to the right – but it looks fairly common in the area.
• Polix coloradella (Skunk moth).
• Brymblia quadrimaculella.
• Decantha stonda.
• Decantha tistra.
• Denisia haydenella.
• Eido trimaculella.

Non-observed species:

• Pleurota albastrigulella. Interesting that this one is listed for BC – MPG (Moth Photographer’s Group) and iNat show a range of mid-southern California and nothing further north.
• Decantha boreasella. Hugh McGuiness cast some doubt about its presence in BC. See this post about that.

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Gelechioidea
Oecophoridae - Concealer moths