Critically Endangered
Laysan Noctuid Moth
Agrotis laysanensis
Laysan Noctuid Moth is an owlet moth in the family Noctuidae (order Lepidoptera) — Agrotis laysanensis, recorded as Critically Endangered.
The owlet moth
Agrotis is a genus of owlet moths. Adults fly at night; many larvae are cutworms that feed on low plants. Island species in this genus often have nowhere else to go.
Owlet moths are a huge noctuid family. Adults are typically dull, night-flying moths; the larvae feed on plants.
Range and habitat
It is endemic to Laysan, in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
Adult owlet moths come to light. Caterpillars of many species feed on grasses or herbs; island moths may have used a single native plant.
The adult is what most collections hold. The larva — the feeding stage — is often undescribed for the rarest names.
In crisis
This moth was one, if not the main species, eaten by the extinct Laysan millerbird.
Named moths and butterflies with a high threat category are often known from a small range and a thin series. Host-plant loss leaves little to recount.
Laysan Noctuid Moth is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Laysan Noctuid Moth — often a short stub, Wikidata item Q139459. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
