''Siccia dudai'' is a

moth Moths are a group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not Butterfly, butterflies. They were previously classified as suborder Heterocera, but the group is Paraphyly, paraphyletic with respect to butterflies (s ...

in the family

Erebidae The Erebidae are a family (biology), family of moths in the superfamily Noctuoidea. The family is among the largest families of moths by species count and contains a wide variety of well-known macromoth groups. The family includes the underwin ...

. It was described by Povilas Ivinskis and Aidas Saldaitis in 2008. It is found in

Oman Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, is a country located on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia and the Middle East. It shares land borders with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Oman’s coastline ...

Taxonomy, Description, and Distribution

Siccia dudai is a species of moth in the family 

, first described in 2008 by entomologists Povilas Ivinskis and Aidas Saldaitis in Acta Zoologica Lituanica. The species is known solely from its type locality in southern Oman, specifically from the

Dhofar The Dhofar Governorate () is the largest of the 11 governorates in the Sultanate of Oman in terms of area. It lies in southern Oman, on the eastern border with Yemen's Al Mahrah Governorate and the southern border with Saudi Arabia's Easter ...

region near Wadi Al Mughsayl, at an elevation of approximately 640 m, where both the holotype and several paratypes were collected in September 2006. As with other members of the genus Siccia, S. dudai likely exhibits a small wingspan, patterned forewings, and larval stages associated with detritus or

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

, although specific larval host plants remain undocumented. Notably, a 2023 revision by Anton Volynkin transferred the species to the genus Stictane, renaming it Stictane dudai, as part of a taxonomic realignment of

Afrotropical The Afrotropical realm is one of the Earth's eight biogeographic realms. It includes Sub-Saharan Africa, the southern Arabian Peninsula, the island of Madagascar, and the islands of the western Indian Ocean. It was formerly known as the Ethiopi ...

and Asian species within the subtribe

Lithosiini The Lithosiini are a tribe of lichen moths in the family Erebidae. The taxon was described by Gustaf Johan Billberg in 1820. Systematics The tribe was previously treated as a higher-level taxon, the subfamily Lithosiinae, within the lichen a ...

, though the original combination is still frequently referenced.https://www.afromoths.net/species/45488

References

* Moths described in 2008 Nudariina {{Nudariina-stub