''Smerinthus ophthalmica'' 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 ...

of the family

Sphingidae The Sphingidae are a family of moths commonly called sphinx moths, also colloquially known as hawk moths, with many of their caterpillars known as hornworms. It includes about 1,450 species. It is best represented in the tropics, but species ar ...

. It was described by

Jean Baptiste Boisduval Jean Baptiste Alphonse Déchauffour de Boisduval (24 June 1799 – 30 December 1879) was a French lepidopterist, botanist, and physician. He was one of the most celebrated lepidopterists of France, and was the co-founder of the Société ento ...

in 1855 . It is found in western North America from

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

Taxonomy

The populations of ''

Smerinthus cerisyi ''Smerinthus cerisyi'', the one-eyed sphinx or Cerisy's sphinx, is a moth of the family Sphingidae. The species was first described by William Kirby who named the species in honor of Alexandre Louis Lefèbvre de Cérisy in 1837. Distribution ...

'' were divided into two species by Pohl, Anweiler, Schmidt and Kondla in 2010. The southern prairie-mountain (

Crowsnest Pass Crowsnest Pass (sometimes referred to as Crow's Nest Pass, ) is a low mountain pass across the Continental Divide of the Canadian Rockies on the Alberta–British Columbia border. Geography The pass is located in southeast British Columbia an ...

southward) populations are now known as ''S. ophthalmica'' (type locality: San Francisco, California) and the boreal-mountain populations as ''S. cerisyi'' (type locality: North America, limited to New York State). Rothschild and Jordan revised ''ophthalmica'' to a subspecies of ''S. cerisyi'' in 1903, and Hodges treated it as a synonym of ''S. cerisyi'' in 1971, which has been generally followed since, with the exception of Eitschberger, who raised three taxa (''astarte'', ''vancouverensis'' and ''ophthalmica'') from synonymy under ''S. cerisyi'' in 2002. These taxonomic changes pertaining to North American taxa were countered by Tuttle in 2007. ''S. ophthalmica'' however, is distinguished by a pale brown phenotype prevalent in prairie populations, a less scalloped margin on the forewing, less scalloped and smoother postmedian lines on the forewing, a sharper angle of the antemedian line, and narrower serrations of the male antennae, as well as surprisingly large mitochondrial DNA divergence. Smerinthus ophthalmica MHNT CUT 2010 0 493 Haliburton County, Ontario, female dorsal.jpg, Female dorsal Smerinthus ophthalmica MHNT CUT 2010 0 493 Haliburton County, Ontario, female ventral.jpg, Female ventral

References

Smerinthus Moths described in 1855 Moths of North America Taxa named by Jean Baptiste Boisduval {{Smerinthini-stub