''Urania sloanus'', or Sloane's urania, was a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

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 family

Uraniidae The Uraniidae are a family of moths containing four subfamilies, 90 genera, and roughly 700 species. The family is distributed throughout the tropics of the Americas, Africa and Indo-Australia.Carter, David, ''Eyewitness Handbook to Butterflies ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

. It was last reported in 1894 or 1895,Lees, D.C. & Smith, N.G. (1991)
"Foodplants of the Uraniinae (Uraniinae) and their Systematic, Evolutionary and Ecological Significance"
''Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society''. 45: 297-347. Retrieved August 3, 2015. but possibly survived until at least 1908.Vinciguerra, R. (2009). "Osservazioni su ''Urania sloanus'' (Cramer, 1779) (Lepidoptera: Uraniidae)". ''SHILAP Revista de Lepidopterología''. 37 (147): 1-6.Lees, D.C. (2010)

April 16, 2010. Archived from th

February 21, 2015. The species was first described by

Pieter Cramer Pieter Cramer (21 May 1721 (baptized) – 28 September 1776), was a wealthy Dutch merchant in linen and Spanish wool, remembered as an entomologist. Cramer was the director of the Zealand Society, a scientific society located in Flushing, and a mem ...

in 1779. The specific epithet ''sloanus'' honours

Sir Hans Sloane Sir Hans Sloane, 1st Baronet (16 April 1660 – 11 January 1753), was an Irish physician, naturalist, and collector, with a collection of 71,000 items which he bequeathed to the British nation, thus providing the foundation of the British Mu ...

(1660–1753), an English collector whose collection became the foundation of the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

Description

This extinct ''Urania'' species was black with iridescent red, blue and green markings. The iridescent parts of the wings do not have pigment; as determined by optical analysis on the species ''Urania fulgens'' belonging to the same genus. The color originates from

refraction In physics, refraction is the redirection of a wave as it passes from one medium to another. The redirection can be caused by the wave's change in speed or by a change in the medium. Refraction of light is the most commonly observed phenome ...

of light by the ribbon-like

scales Scale or scales may refer to: Mathematics * Scale (descriptive set theory), an object defined on a set of points * Scale (ratio), the ratio of a linear dimension of a model to the corresponding dimension of the original * Scale factor, a number w ...

covering the moth's wings. ''Urania sloanus'' is considered "the most spectacular ''Urania'' species". As most species of the subfamily

Uraniinae (1) Use ''Endospermum'' as a food plant.(2) Use ''Omphalea'' as a food plant and adults are diurnal. ''Urapterita'' is not included for lack of data. The Uraniinae or uraniine moths are a subfamily of moths in the family Urani ...

, it was a day-flying moth while most moths are active at night; its bright colors advertised, as a warning, the fact that it was also toxic. "Urania sloanus species had orange and green neon coloring spread through its wings" (Smith, 1991). These components facilitate the future discovery of the species if they are found to still be existing. The vibrant coloring makes the species easily identifiable to researchers and ecologists studying the species.

Extinction

Based on current knowledge of extant uraniine species, it is likely that Sloane's urania migrated between patches of host plants, after population explosions locally defoliated them. This probably required relatively large, intact areas of lowland forest.(2004
''Urania sloanus''
i

o

Retrieved October 6, 2007.

Habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

when Jamaica's lowland rainforests were cleared and converted to agricultural land during the colonial era may have contributed to its extinction, although large parts of primary forest still remain. This specific species of moths experienced a decline in their population because of a drastic change in environmental components. Like other members of the genus ''Urania'', periodic swarms of moths were separated by years of great scarcity. The U. sloanus species faced significant threats that imposed less than sustainable environments for the species survival. U. sloanus species experienced the loss of their main larval host through habitat destruction this was directly linked to abrupt agricultural changes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters (Nazari, 2016). As the question of why did this species become extinct is further examined, we can conclude that the species was forced into unsustainable and unadaptable conditions that would inevitably lead to a loss in the overall population and survival rates of the species.

References

7. Nazari, V., Schmidt, B. C., Prosser, S., & Hebert, P. D. N. (2016). Century-Old DNA Barcodes \ Reveal Phylogenetic Placement of the Extinct Jamaican Sunset Moth, Urania sloanus Cramer (Lepidoptera: Uraniidae). PLOS ONE, 11(10), e0164405. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0164405 8. Smith, N. (1991). FOOD PLANT ASSOCIATIONS OF THE URANIINAE (URANIIDAE) AND THEIR SYSTEM A TIC, EVOLUTIONARY, AND ECOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE. Journal of the Lepidopterists’ SOciety, 45(4), 296–347. https://images.peabody.yale.edu/lepsoc/jls/1990s/1991/1991-45(4)296-Lees.pdf

External links

* *
''Urania sloanus'' Peale specimen from the Academy of Natural Sciences general collection
Contains a photo (with scale) of a specimen collected by Titian R. Peale. {{Taxonbar, from=Q141930 Extinct animals of Jamaica † Extinct insects since 1500 Extinct moths Moths of South America † Taxa named by Pieter Cramer