Nearly a year ago, an engineering student chanced upon a rare moth on the wall of his house at Vettippuram here, and took a few photographs. It turned out that Siyad A. Karim had discovered a new moth species belonging to the Palpifer genera of the Hepialidae family (Ghost moths).
The young wildlife enthusiast sent the photographs to John Grehan, a global authority on Hepialids, who confirmed the finding.
In his reply, Dr. Grehan said, “the moth is definitely Palpifer. This is a poorly known group of moths with a known distribution between the Himalayas and Taiwan in the north and Java in the south, with very scattered records.”
A new species in this genera was being found in the Indian subcontinent for the first time in six decades. “Although there is a species endemic to Sri Lanka, our find is the first for the Indian subcontinent and south of the Himalayas,” Dr. Grehan said.
International journal
A member of the district birdwatchers’ forum, Siyad has been a keen observer of the ecosystem, says Hari Mavelikara, birdwatcher and district coordinator of the Bird Atlas project. Hari said the spotting of the new Palpifer has been referred in an article by Dr. Grehan in the international journal published by the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Natural History, U.S.
Moths are insects related to butterflies and are generally seen during night. It is estimated that approximately 10,000 species of moths belonging to over 41 families exist in India, says Siyad.
Webpage
Hari said the sighting was also added to Dr. Grehan’s webpage, which is a collection of data about Hepialids across the world. Siyad is an active member of Pathanamthitta Birders, a group of birdwatchers in Pathanamthitta district conducting bird documentation and studies in southern Kerala.
