DISTRIBUTION:

Aglia tau amurensis flies in Amur, China: Heilongjiang; North Korea, South Korea and the Russian Far East and Primorye.

The Japanese sister species is Aglia japonica Leech, 1889. The two allied taxa can be distinguished from each other by their different eye-spots in the forewing and by certain features of the male genitalia.

Aglia tau amurensis female, Beijing, China,
probably nominate tau?? or maybe sinyaevi

In a 2000 publication, Beeke, Brosch, Lampe and Nassig indicate that those moths designated as tau amurensis from Heilongjian, Jilin, Liaoning and Shaanxi, China, are nominate tau.

In 2003 Naumann, Brosch and Nassig published a paper in which they mention all the specimens which had previously been designated as subspecies of tau as synonyms of Aglia tau.

In 2015 Brechlin & Meister published descriptions of two new Aglia species, Aglia sinyaevi from Shaanxi, China, and Aglia vanschaycki from Guizhou, China. Brechlin & Meister do not mention any subspecies of tau other than nominate tau.

The image at the top of this page (sent to me as tau amurensis) from Korea might be nominate Aglia tau, but it is also a very good match for the AT female of Aglia sinyeavi which was at of time of publication only listed in Shaanxi, China, in Brechlin and Meister's 2015 publication.

So if you are confused, so am I. I think that there is probably very little difference between tau and sinyeavi. I suspect that although only two specimens (one male and one female) from Shaanxi have been designated as sinyaevi, that sinyaevi also shows the same variability as found in tau. In the 2015 description of sinyaevi, Brechlin & Meister mention the narrower post median area in sinyaevi as compared to tau. I would not be surprised if many of the specimens listed as tau or tau amurensis in collections are actually sinyaevi, and I am not really convinced that sinyeavi is truly different from tau.

I believe the image below, listed as tau amurensis, is from Beijing, China. It is a pretty good match in colouration and patterning for the HT male of sinyaevi depicted/described by Brechlin & Meister, 2015, although its pm area/marginal area does not seem quite as narrow as is indicated for sinjaevi, and the am line is not tangential to the ocellus as it is in sinyaevi.

Aglia tau/tau amurensis/sinyaevi ?? male, Beijing, Hebei, China.

FLIGHT TIMES AND PREFERRED FOOD PLANTS:

This species probably flies from March until June depending upon location and spring temperatures.

The preferred foodplant is birch, but tau amurensis also accepts beech, lime, oak, sycamore and walnut.

ECLOSION, SCENTING AND MATING:

Pairing takes place from morning until noon, but females (usually twice the size of the male and pale in comparison) deposit their eggs under the cover of darkness.

Calling females are often located by rearers by tracking down the day-flying males. Males have large bipectinate antennae while females have almost filiform ones.

EGGS, LARVAE, COCOONS AND PUPAE:

Aglia tau amurensis larva, South Korea, courtesy of Rodolphe Rougerie.

Listed below are the primary and alternate food plants listed in Stephen E. Stone's Foodplants of World Saturniidae and/or on various internet sources. It is hoped that this alphabetical listing followed by the common name of the foodplant will prove useful. The list is not exhaustive. Experimenting with closely related foodplants is worthwhile.

Acer pseudoplatanux Alnus cremastogyne Alnus japonica Betula alba Betula pendula Betula platyphylla Carpinus betulus Castanea crenata Corylus avellana Corylus heterophylla Fagus crenata Fagus longipetiolata...... Fagus sylvatica Ilex verticilata Juglans regia Platanus Pyrus communis Pyrus malus Quercus dentata Quercus robar Quercus serrata Salix capraea Tilia

Sycamore maple alder Japanese alder White birch Silver birch Japanese white birch European hornbeam Japanese chestnut European hazel Hazel Japanese beech Beech European beech Black alder English walnut Sycamore Pear Apple Daimyo oak English oak Konara oak Sallow/Goat willow Basswood/Lime/linden

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The pronunciation of scientific names is troublesome for many. The "suggestion" at the top of the page is merely a suggestion. It is based on commonly accepted English pronunciation of Greek names and/or some fairly well accepted "rules" for latinized scientific names.

Often names were chosen without any direct link to the characters of the genus or species.

The suggested pronunciations, on this page and on other pages, are primarily put forward to assist those who hear with internal ears as they read.

There are many collectors from different countries whose intonations and accents would be different.

In Greek mythology, Aglia is one of the Graces and is the wife of Hypnos. Also known as Pasithea, Aglia is the mother of Morpheus.

The species name, tau, is for the "T" (tau) in the hindwing ocellus. The subspecies name, "amurensis", indicates the geographic range of this subspecies, the Amur region of northeast Asia.