The World Wide Butterfly Breeding Forum is a lively discussion group that has offered some useful clues. Nigel Venters says about a trip to the Misiones region of Argentina (NE corner of country): this species seemed absent, (of course our own observations only!). We ran Mercury Vapor lights every night and we did not see a single specimen of Thysania Agrippina. Anyway, even negative results may be useful. Chatting to folk living there, it seems like Nov/Dec and March/April, it seems most common time to find the adults there.
Putting the two observations together, it could make sense that no moths were seen in this week. Would be interesting to see if lights run again in March turned up adults.Two distinct flight seasons would be interesting - possibility of 2 broods/year? One snapshot of seasonal climate patterns in Misiones, (see lots of data here):
The graph here shows some seasonal variation in Misiones rainforest, but no distinct dry season; annual precipitation ~200 cm.
Putting the two observations together, it could make sense that no moths were seen in this week. Would be interesting to see if lights run again in March turned up adults.Two distinct flight seasons would be interesting - possibility of 2 broods/year? One snapshot of seasonal climate patterns in Misiones, (see lots of data here):
The graph here shows some seasonal variation in Misiones rainforest, but no distinct dry season; annual precipitation ~200 cm.