First Identifications of Carathis australis (Lepidoptera; Erebidae) on Inaturalist.
Carathis australis was first described by Rothschild, 1909 (https://archive.org/details/ser8annalsmagazi04londuoft/page/208/mode/1up?view=theater) with type locality in the brazilian state of Santa Catarina. A plate with Carathis australis picture was also provided in 1910 (https://archive.org/details/novitateszoologi17lond/page/n607/mode/2up?view=theater). Recently, a review of the genus Carathis was published with key to species, diagnosis and pictures of museum specimens (Becker, 2011).
While conducting a search in Inaturalist site looking for Carathis byblis in the state of Paraná I found a moth with similar pattern but different from C. byblis. Investigating the genus in the site Funet.fi I found another species in the genus sympathric with C. byblis (https://ftp.funet.fi/index/Tree_of_life/insecta/lepidoptera/ditrysia/noctuoidea/arctiidae/arctiinae/carathis/). The species is Carathis australis that, based in the pictures and review paper, fully matched the observations in Inaturalist.
It was found 2 observations recognized as Carathis australis in the brazilian state of Paraná: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/177333138, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/182037714.
This was the first identifications of C. australis in Inaturalist and also the first known photographs of living specimens. By now the species is only known for the brazilian states of Santa Catarina and Paraná (Becker, 2011), but Inaturalist have potential to extend the known distribution because it's a species that can be recognized by photographs.
Bibliography:
Becker, V. O. 2011. A review of the neotropical moth genus Carathis Grote (Lepidoptera: Arctiidae). Tropical Lepidoptera Research 20 (2): 95-97.
