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Distinguishing Actias artemis and A. gnoma by morphology and by molecules
Actias artemis and A. gnoma are the two saturniid species of which their gracious morphology often attracts butterfly collectors. The two species, however, have similar wing patterns, even with considerable amount of variations, making difficult to distinguish between the two. We gathered about a hundred specimens of either of the species and tried to distinguish them by their wing morphology as indicated in many books and webpages. This was definitely not easy and we were not even sure if our distinction was right. We changed our plan and we first tried to sequence their COI barcode region and found that the two have more than enough difference and could easily distinguish the two by sequence similarity. Then we compared their outer morphological characters that are often used by people between the two to see if any morphological character can distinguish the two. We concluded that no one characteristic can separate the two although combination of several characteristics may do so. We also made a comparison of their genitalia and they were distinctly different. With the help of genitalic dissection, we found that they can be distinguished without actual dissection by comparing their genital end after just brushing off some scales at the end. For female comparison, a further study with more material is needed as we found the proportion of females among the samples was very low.
