Jennifer M. Zaspel

Purdue University | Purdue · Department of Entomology

The host preference of the economically important fruit piercing moth, Calyptra lata (Butler 1881), was studied when exposed to different fruits and the odors of those fruits in enclosed feeding assays and in a two-choice ol-factometer. The fruits consisted of three ripe and locally available types: raspberries, cherries and plums. Moths were relea...

The focus of this study was to reconstruct a phylogenetic hypothesis for the moth subfamily Arctiinae (tiger moths, woolly bears) to investigate the evolution of larval and adult pharmacophagy of pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs) and the pathway to PA chemical specialization in Arctiinae. Pharmacophagy, collection of chemicals for non-nutritive purpose...

Abstract Facultative blood feeding on live animals or carrion is widespread within Lepidoptera. Male moths within the genus Calyptra are known to use their fruit-piercing mouthparts to occasionally feed on mammalian blood. The Palearctic species, Calyptra thalcitri, is known to exhibit differential feeding behaviors apparently based on geographic l...

The lichen moth tribe Lithosiini is best known for its hypothesized larval feeding behaviour, lichenivory. The larvae of some species have been found to be capable of sequestering polyphenolics, and the adults of some species are unpalatable to vertebrate predators. However, the chemical basis for the defence is unknown. Here we reconstruct a phylo...

Unique structures often accompany unusual feeding behaviors in erebid moths. We test whether self-medicating (e.g., pharmacophagous) adult tiger moths have specialized structures on their mouthparts. We examined mouthparts of pharmacophagous and non-pharmacophagous adults using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Self-medicating adults had signific...

The tiger moth genus Virbia Walker is comprised of small tomedium sized, brightly colored moths distributed from southcentral Canada to central South America. Included in this genusare model species for study in lepidopteran pheromones andtiger moth morphology. Here, we reconstruct aphylogeny to provide an evolutionary framework for thesestudies, a...

The lichen moth tribe Lithosiini (Lepidoptera: Erebidae: Arctiinae) is composed of 3,150 species that are cosmopolitan in distribution. The tribe is best known for the host choice of the larvae: lichens. Lichen moth larvae have been found to be capable of sequestering lichen phenolics. However, it is unknown how widespread this behavior is within t...

Tiger moths are known around the world for their vibrant coloration as well as their unusual feeding behaviors. In particular, some tiger moths engage in sequestering chemicals for their non-nutrient value. This feeding behavior has been linked to other behaviors such as mating behaviors and self-medication. While tiger moth behavior has been exten...

The lichen moth tribe Lithosiini is composed of an estimated 4000 to 5000 species. Two phylogenetic analyses have recovered the tribe as monophyletic, but no work has been completed to examine the evolutionary relationships among the genera. Currently, seven subtribes have been proposed to occur within Lithosiini based on shared morphological chara...

Functional feeding categories for adult species of Calpinae are described. Structures associated with the proboscis were examined using exemplar species in fruit-piercing, blood-feeding, and tear-feeding species using both light microscopy and SEM methods. At least three genera currently placed in Calpini, and several others in related groups lack...

The mechanisms by which blood feeding in insects has evolved are unclear, primarily because there has been no access to species in which there is a mixture of same-sex blood feeding and non-blood feeding individuals. The discovery of a subset of male Calyptra thalictri (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae: Calpini) that blood feed under constrained experimental...

Our results are consistent with previous studies (Fukatsu 1999) suggesting acetone and 95% EtOH are adequate short-term specimen preservation methods for detecting endosymbiotic bacterial DNA within an insect host. Although not statistically significant, an apparent reduction in Wolbachia wspA copy number and HF PCR band intensity of the symbiont D...

The use and role of morophology and molecular data within modern phylogenetics have been debated, often quite passionately, for well over a decade. Howevere, there has been no empiracle data to examine the use of each type of data within entomology. Herein we have gathered data from 11 journals representing the major systematic/phylogenetic journal...

Previous inventories of the diversity of lepidopteran symbionts have been limited to Eubacteria. We conducted a microbial survey of Calyptra thalictri Borkhausen (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) by using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers for 16S rRNA sequences for Eubacteria, and primers for Archaea, fungi including yeast-like organisms, Microsporidi...

A preliminary checklist of Calpini is provided, incorporating corrections and changes to publication dates and nomenclature as presented in the checklists of Poole (1989), Fibiger and Lafontaine (2005), and Holloway (2005). Culasta Moore is removed from synonymy with Calyptra Ochsenheimer. Eudocima talboti (Prout) and Graphigona antica Walker are p...

A phylogeny for Holomelina and Virbia was constructed based on adult morphology. This study included 42 of the 70 recognized species in Holomelina and Virbia, two new species, and two elevated synonyms (H. marginata Druce and V. inversia Edwards). The following outgroups were chosen from the Arctiini: Arachnis picta Packard, Hypercompe permaculata...