''Myrmecopsis strigosa'' is a

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...

of the subfamily

Arctiinae The Arctiinae (formerly called the family Arctiidae) are a large and diverse subfamily of moths with around 11,000 species found all over the world, including 6,000 neotropical species.Scoble, MJ. (1995). ''The Lepidoptera: Form, Function and D ...

. It was described by

Herbert Druce Herbert Druce, FLS (14 July 1846, in London – 11 April 1913, in London) was an English entomologist. His collections were acquired by Frederick DuCane Godman (1834–1919), Osbert Salvin (1835–1898), and James John Joicey (1870–1932) be ...

in 1884. It is found in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

and

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

. The

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan of ...

is about 25 mm. It is thought to be a Müllerian mimic of the wasp ''

Parachartergus apicalis ''Parachartergus apicalis'' is a species of wasp in the Polistinae subfamily, found in the Neotropics. It was first described by Johan Christian Fabricius in 1804. In Honduras, they are known as ', which translates into English as "white wings". ...

'', with predators paying a high penalty for mistaking ''M. strigosa'' for the wasp and there is a small reward from correctly identifying it since ''M. strigosa'' is bitter tasting and covered in scales.

References

* Euchromiina Moths described in 1884 Moths of Central America {{Euchromiina-stub