Automeris io

Superregnum: Eukaryota
Cladus: Unikonta
Cladus: Opisthokonta
Cladus: Holozoa
Regnum: Animalia
Subregnum: Eumetazoa
Cladus: Bilateria
Cladus: Nephrozoa
Cladus: Protostomia
Cladus: Ecdysozoa
Cladus: Panarthropoda
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Hexapoda
Classis: Insecta
Cladus: Dicondylia
Subclassis: Pterygota
Cladus: Metapterygota
Infraclassis: Neoptera
Cladus: Eumetabola
Cladus: Endopterygota
Superordo: Panorpida
Cladus: Amphiesmenoptera
Ordo: Lepidoptera
Subordo: Glossata
Cladus: Coelolepida
Cladus: Myoglossata
Cladus: Neolepidoptera
Infraordo: Heteroneura
Cladus: Eulepidoptera
Cladus: Ditrysia
Cladus: Apoditrysia
Cladus: Obtectomera
Cladus: Macroheterocera
Superfamilia: Bombycoidea

Familia: Saturniidae
Subfamilie: Hemileucinae
Genus: Automeris
Species: Automeris io
Subspecies: (5):
A. i. draudtiana – A. i. io – A. i. lilith – A. i. neomexicana – A. i. potosiana
Name

Automeris io (Fabricius, 1775)
Synonyms

Bombyx io Fabricius, 1775
Hyperchiria varia Walker, 1855
Automeris argus Neumoegen & Dyar, 1893
Automeris lutheri Cockerell, 1914
Automeris coloradensis Cockerell, 1914
Automeris texana Barnes & Benjamin, 1923
Automeris caeca Igel, 1928
Automeris mexicana Draudt, 1929
Automeris packardi Schüssler, 1934

References

Brechlin, R., Meister, F. & van Schayck, E., 2011. Nine new taxa of the genus Automeris Hübner, [1819] (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae). Entomo-satsphingia 4(2): 16–29. Reference page.

External links

Photo's: males, female [1]

Vernacular names
English: Io moth

Automeris io, the Io moth (EYE-oh) or peacock moth, is a colorful North American moth in the family Saturniidae.[2][3] The io moth is also a member of the subfamily Hemileucinae.[4] The name Io comes from Greek mythology in which Io was a mortal lover of Zeus.[5] The Io moth ranges from the southeast corner of Manitoba and in the southern extremes of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in Canada, and in the US it is found from Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, east of those states and down to the southern end of Florida.[6] The species was first described by Johan Christian Fabricius in 1775.
Adult description

Imagines (sexually mature, reproductive stage) have a wingspan of 2.5–3.5 inches (63–88 mm).[4][6] This species is sexually dimorphic, males having bright yellow forewings, body, and legs, while females have reddish-brown to purple forewings, body, and legs.[7][8] The males also have much bigger plumose (feathery) antennae than the females.[7] Both males and females have one big black to bluish eyespot with some white in the center, on each hindwing.[8][9][10] Some hybridizations have resulted in variations in these hindwing eyespots.[9][10] Adults live 1–2 weeks.
Eyespots on a female moth
Parasitoids

Many species of flies (Tachinidae) and wasps (Ichneumonidae and Braconidae) are known parasitoids.[7] The flies: the introduced Compsilura concinnata, Lespesia sabroskyi, Chetogena claripennis, Carcelia formosa, Sisyropa eudryae, Lespesia frenchii, and Nilea dimmocki.[11] The Ichneumonidae wasps: Hyposoter fugitivus and Enicospilus americanus.[7] Then the Braconidae wasps: Cotesia electrae and Cotesia hemileucae.[7]
Predators

Io moths have many predators. These include birds, small mammals, and spiders.[7][8]
Defenses

Stinging spines of caterpillar Io moths have a very painful venom that is released with the slightest touch; a condition known as erucism. There are two hypotheses regarding where this venom originates: (1) the glandular cells on the base of the branched seta or (2) from the secretory epithelial cells.[12] Contacting the seta is not life-threatening for humans, but still causes irritation to the dermal tissue, thought to result in a stinging sensation.[13][14] Both male and female adult io moths utilize their hindwing eyespots in predatory defense when the moth is sitting in the head-down position or is touched, via shaking and exposing these eyespots.[9][10][8]
Life cycle

Females lay small, white ova in the leaves of host plants, including:

Morus alba-mulberry

Prunus pensylvanica—pin cherry
Salix—willow
Abies balsamea—balsam fir
Acer rubrum—red maple
Amorpha fruticosa—bastard indigo
Baptisia tinctoria—wild indigo
Carpinus caroliniana—American hornbeam
Celtis laevigata—sugarberry or southern hackberry
Cephalanthus occidentalis—button-bush
Cercis canadensis—eastern redbud
Chamaecrista fasciculata—showy partridge pea
Comptonia peregrina—sweetfern
Cornus florida—flowering dogwood
Corylus avellana—common hazel
Erythrina herbacea, coral bean[15]
Fagus—beech
Fraxinus—ash
Liquidambar styraciflua—American sweetgum
Lythrum salicaria, introduced Purple Loosestrife[16]
Quercus—oak

Eggs, about 48 hours after they were laid, on a bay tree leaf
Paeonia—peony

First instar on Quercus virginiana
Final instar Io moth caterpillar

The eggs have large micropyle rosettes that turn black as the fertile eggs develop. They are usually laid in clusters of more than twenty and hatch within 8–11 days.[7][8] From the eggs, orange larvae emerge, usually eating their egg shell soon after hatching.[7] They go through five instars, each one being a little different.
Female Io moth after laying eggs

The caterpillars are herbivorous and gregarious in all their instars, many times traveling in single file processions all over the food plant.[8][17][4] As the larvae develop, they will lose their orange color and will turn bright green and urticating, having many spines. The green caterpillars have two lateral stripes, the upper one being bright red and the lower one being white. These caterpillars can reach sizes of 7 cm in length.[18] When the caterpillars are ready, they spin a flimsy, valveless cocoon made from a dark, coarse silk. Some larvae will crawl to the base of the tree and make their cocoons among leaf litter on the ground, while others will use living leaves to wrap their cocoons with.[7][4] The leaves will turn brown and fall to the ground during fall, taking the cocoons with them.[7][4] There they pupate, the pupa being dark brown/black.[7] The pupae also have sexual dimorphism with the females being considerably larger than the males.[7]
(Automeris io) caterpillars on reed
(Automeris io) caterpillars on reed

Adult io moths normally emerge from their cocoons in late morning or early afternoon. The emergence of the adults moths is typically from June to July.[19] Eclosion (emergence from the cocoon) only takes a few minutes.[17] After eclosing, the moths climb and hang on plants so that their furled wings can be inflated with fluid (hemolymph) pumped from the body. This inflation process takes about twenty minutes. Adult moths are strictly nocturnal, generally flying during the peak hours of the night.[19] The females generally wait until nightfall and then extend a scent gland from the posterior region of the abdomen, in order to attract males via wind-borne pheromones.[7] The males use their larger antennae to detect the pheromones. After mating, the females die following egg laying. These moths have vestigial mouthparts and do not eat in the adult stage.[5][8]
Conservation Status

The io moth is currently not listed on the IUCN Red List or the US Federal List.[17] In the eastern range of the US, the populations indicate a declining and more localized trend.[20][17]
Automeris io by Titian Peale, 1833
See also

Aglais io, a butterfly species

References

Fabricius, Johan Christian (1775). Systema entomologiae: sistens insectorvm classes, ordines, genera, species, adiectis synonymis, locis, descriptionibvs, observationibvs (PDF) (in Latin). Flensbvrgi et Lipsiae: In Officina Libraria Kortii. p. 560. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.36510. OCLC 559265566. Retrieved March 15, 2018.
"Species Automeris io - Io Moth - Hodges#7746". bugguide.net. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
Triant, Deborah A (2016). "Genome assembly and annotation of the io moth,Automeris io (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae)". 2016 International Congress of Entomology. Entomological Society of America. doi:10.1603/ice.2016.114514.
"Io moth Automeris io (Fabricius, 1775) | Butterflies and Moths of North America". www.butterfliesandmoths.org. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
"Io Moth (Automeris io)". www.insectidentification.org. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
Hossler, Eric; Elston, Dirk; Wagner, David (2008). "What's Eating You? Automeris io" (PDF). Cutis. 82: 21–24.
"io moth - Automeris io (Fabricius)". entnemdept.ufl.edu. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
"Io Moth". Missouri Department of Conservation. Retrieved February 23, 2022.
Sourakov, Andrei (September 26, 2017). "Giving eyespots a shiner: Pharmacologic manipulation of the Io moth wing pattern". F1000Research. 6: 1319. doi:10.12688/f1000research.12258.2. ISSN 2046-1402. PMC 5629545. PMID 29057069.
Stevens, Martin (November 2005). "The role of eyespots as anti-predator mechanisms, principally demonstrated in the Lepidoptera". Biological Reviews. 80 (4): 573–588. doi:10.1017/S1464793105006810. ISSN 1469-185X. PMID 16221330. S2CID 24868603.
O’Hara, James E.; Wood, D. Monty (December 1998). "Tachinidae (Diptera): Nomenclatural Review and Changes, Primarily for America North of Mexico". The Canadian Entomologist. 130 (6): 751–774. doi:10.4039/ent130751-6. ISSN 0008-347X.
Ellis, Carter Reid; Elston, Dirk M.; Hossler, Eric W.; Cowper, Shawn E.; Rapini, Ronald P. (2021). "What's Eating You? Caterpillars" (PDF). Cutis. 108 (6): 346–351. doi:10.12788/cutis.0406. PMID 35167790. S2CID 246865715.
Villas-Boas, Isadora Maria; Alvarez-Flores, Miryam Paola; Chudzinski-Tavassi, Ana Marisa; Tambourgi, Denise V. (2016). "Envenomation by Caterpillars". Clinical Toxinology in Australia, Europe, and Americas. Toxinology. Vol. 57. pp. 429–449. doi:10.1007/978-94-017-7438-3_57. ISBN 978-94-017-7436-9.
Jones, David L.; Miller, Joseph H. (January 1, 1959). "Pathology of the Dermatitis Produced by the Urticating Caterpillar, Automeris Io". A.M.A. Archives of Dermatology. 79 (1): 81–85. doi:10.1001/archderm.1959.01560130083009. ISSN 0096-5359. PMID 13605279.
Sourakov, Andrei (2013). "Larvae of Io Moth, Automeris io, On the Coral Bean, Erythrina herbacea, in Florida—the Limitations of Polyphagy". The Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society. 67 (4): 291–298. doi:10.18473/lepi.v67i4.a6. S2CID 87172312. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
Barbour, James; Kiviat, Erik (January 10, 2018). "Introduced Purple Loosestrife as Host of Native Saturniidae (Lepidoptera)". The Great Lakes Entomologist. 30 (2). ISSN 0090-0222.
Miner, Angela. "Automeris io". Animal Diversity Web. Retrieved February 13, 2022.
"Species Automeris io - Io Moth - Hodges#7746". bugguide.net. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
"Adult and Larva of Moths of Pennsylvania: Moths and Butterflies" (PDF). WRCF Poster. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
Wagner, David (2012). "Conservation Matters: Moth Decline in the Northeastern United States" (PDF). News of the Lepidopterists' Society. 54: 52–55.