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Asthenidia buckleyi paraensis, Virua NP (near Caracarai), Roraima, Brazil,
July 23, 2015, courtesy of Rich Hoyer, tentative id by Bill Oehlke.
Asthenidia lactucina, Virua NP (near Caracarai), Roraima, Brazil,
July 19, 2015, courtesy of Rich Hoyer, tentative id by Bill Oehlke.
These provisional checklists of the different Saturniidae subfamilies/tribes have been largely created by going through the information provided in the four great Saturniidae works by the late Dr. Claude Lemaire of France: Attacidae (1978), Arsenurinae (1980), Ceratocampinae (1988) and Hemileucinae (2002). Dr. Lemaire's confirmations for Roraima are indicated with an asterisk (*).
I have made many of my own interpolations from those works, particularly if a species was described from surrounding Brazilian states or other nearby countries with a similar biome (Tropical Rain Forest; Amazonica). Those interpolations are followed by "?" to indicate I have no confirmed reports, but I anticipate the species has a range including the state of Roraima.
The Brazilian states in the North Region have not been sampled for Saturniidae nearly as well as those states in the South, Southeast, and Center-West Regions. I suspect there are many omissions in these listings, and there would also be many omissions in the Northeast Region which is also poorly sampled as of this writing, February 10, 2016.
Many new species have been described since the publications of Dr. Lemaire works and much effort has been made and continues to be made with revisions to the lists. Those species recently described in the Entomo-Satsphingia Journals: 2008-2015, by Brechlin & Meister have an (e) following their names. As of 2016 there are no new additions by Brechlin and Meister.
Many thanks to Rich Hoyer who provides the Asthenidia images near top of this page.
The state's southern part is located in the Amazon rainforest, while the north has open grassland fields, and there is a small strip of savanna to the east.
The Monte Roraima National Park is located around one of the highest mountains of both Venezuela (outside of the Andes) and Brazil, and the highest in Guyana, a 2,875 m (9,432 ft) high tepui known as Monte Roraima. Only a small fraction of the mountain is in Brazilian territory, however, and the highest point of the Brazilian part is at 2,734 metres (8,970 ft). It is part of the Serra Pacaraima, a mountain chain running along the border between northern Roraima and southern Venezuela. Another mountain chain, Serra Parima, with elevations of up to 1500m, runs along the western border of Roraima and Venezuela
Saturniidae species would mostly be those of lowland tropical rainforest, but there could be some grassland/savanna species and well as some higher elevation species on the mountain slopes in the north and in the west.
This website is designed and maintained by Bill Oehlke who can be reached at oehlkew@islandtelecom.com. If you have additions, corrections, data, images, etc., please send to Bill Oehlke.
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