Lepidoptera
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Ottawa (Dunrobin), ON Canada 16 May 2005 10:22PM EST (top) Venusia comptaria is one of two species of Venusia that occur in the Ottawa area (J.D. Lafontaine, pers. comm., 2001). The two species are quite similar in appearance, but have different flight seasons (one in spring, the other in early summer). To date, I have not knowingly observed the other species, Venusia cambrica, at my location, but V. comptaria occurs in moderate numbers in the spring. Venusia comptaria is quite small, with a wingspan from 1.6 to 2.2 cm (Covell, 1984). The wings are pale gray, crossed by many wavy lines. Either it is somewhat variable in appearance, or its wings show wear quite quickly, as I have noticed many differences in the number of clearly distinguishable lines from one specimen to another, as can be seen from the five photos above. The sharpest, darkest line is consistently the dark gray postmedial line, which is often thicker and heavier in the upper half of the forewing. Often there are two black dashes extending outward from the pm line at about the same point as the pm line changes thickness. These are clearly evident in the bottom photo, but not noticeable in the center photo and the photo second from the bottom. The pm line is usually followed by a more diffuse wavy brownish line, also often thicker in the upper half. While most of the remaining lines are usually somewhat diffuse and gray in color, the line closest to the base and the line in the median are often also brownish. The pattern of lines is more or less repeated on the hindwing, but is usually less distinct. The thorax and abdomen are gray like the wings, but the head is paler. According to Handfield (1999), the larvae of Venusia comptaria feed on alder, mountain ash, birch and beech. He indicates an adult flight season from about mid-April nearly to the end of May for my general area. My records to date for Venusia comptaria (each date representing "the night of") are in the table below: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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