Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with editing Wikipedia articles, but there’s something wrong with the images of the page for Hylesia nigricans.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylesia_nigricans https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylesia_nigricans The English page says that this moth is endemic for Argentina and Brazil, but the picture shown is a caterpillar from Mexico. I once asked a lepidopterist from Mexico and he said that Hylesia nigricans does not occur in Mexico.
The Spanish page also says that the caterpillar has branched hairs, neither the images for the English nor the Spanish page show a caterpillar with branched hairs. The RG observations in iNat actually do show caterpillars with branched hairs, so I assume that this pictures are probably right. Based on the similarity to the pictures in Wikipedia people keep adding observations of Hylesia nigricans (mainly from Mexico) to iNat. I would be nice if someone could have a look.
It definitely could have a wrong caption, last week I checked the page of Great Cormorant and there was a photo of European Shag that was called GC.
Hi annemirdl, I have now replaced the image on the English Wikipedia (and also on Dutch, Spanish and Swedish Wikipedias) with a different image taken in Argentina.
There are other images of Hylesia nigricans that have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, most of which are from Mexico including a yellow one with branched hairs.
Has this moth been documented to have spread to Mexico? It has been found in new vehicle shipments sent to Australia but is not known to be established there either.
Was the previous image misidentified? If so, what should it be classified as? If we can come to a consensus of its identity, I can flag the corresponding image(s) on Wikimedia Commons to have them re-labeled.
I’ve changed it of course when I saw it to another photo, though it still is named as P. carbo, don’t remember the exact caption.
OK, I see the image that was previously used on the Russian Wikipedia article. I have now requested that the image file be renamed on Wikimedia Commons. The image is not currently in use on any other language Wikipedia project.
As far as I know Hylesia nigricans does still not occur in Mexico, but it seems that there are other Hylesia species.
I think, the pictures in Wikipedia are actually misidentified. I searched for Hylesia (not only Hylesia nigricans) caterpillars in iNat and other online resources and it seems that they have a characteristic appearance. The pictures in Wikipedia could be mostly Arctiinae moth caterpillars, however I’m not an expert for moths. The black ones with yellow hairs could be from genus Leucanella or Automeris. I think misidentification comes from the common Spanish name “Azotador” which is used in Mexico for caterpillars with stinging hair in general. If you search Wikipedia for Azotador, you come to Hylesia nigricans which has also the common name “Azotador”.
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