Abstract: [Objective] The present paper analyzed geometric morphology of 10 species of sphingid adults using geometric morphometric method to explore the feasibility of geometric morphometry on digital classification of sphingid moths for providing new morphological foundation on realizing digital classification of moths progressively.[Method] In the first step, geometric morphometric analysis was carried out. Right forewings of 10 sphingid species were used as research objects and 17 intersections of wing veins were selected as landmarks according to specific order, and coordinate data were obtained. Procrustes superimposition was applied to data of the 17 landmarks to remove non-shape variation from the landmark coordinates such as placing location, direction and sizes; and further, relative warp analysis was used to the new landmark coordinates to obtain effects of 17 landmarks to the 10 sphingid species. In the second step, multivariate statistical analysis was applied to the data collected by geometric morphometric analysis. One-way variance analysis was used for significant test of difference of landmark coordinates firstly; then, principal component analysis of the Procrustes transformed data-set was implemented; at last, discriminant analysis was carried out on the first three components.[Result] The result showed that Landmarks 2, 4 and 5 had relative large contributions on the classification of the 10 sphingid adult species according to relative warp analysis. All of the 17 landmarks had significant difference and could be used for the classification of those 10 Sphingidae adult species by using one-way variance analysis. The accumulated rate of contribution of three principal components of the principal component analysis reached 97.7%, which could be used as variables of the classification and identification of the 10 sphingid adult species. The accuracy of original and cross validation tests reached to 100% and 99.7%, respectively. Classification and identification of the 10 sphingid moths were realized.[Conclusion] It was indicated that geometric morphometric analysis could be used to identify the sphingid adults accurately and would be useful in gradually realizing the automatic recognition of moths in the future.

Key words: Sphingidae species, forewing veins, geometric morphometry, identification, forest insect