moths – Page 8

Moths-on-the-brain

7871 - Deidamia inscripta - Lettered Sphinx (3) — Hodges 7871 - Deidamia inscripta - Lettered Sphinx

The last little while I’ve been focused on (first-stage) edits and revisions of the moth guide. This book has provided me with an amazing insight into the publication process; I have a healthy respect for all the work that’s gone into the reference guides on my bookshelves, and deep sympathies for those other authors. It’s a lot more work than you’d think! We tend to take our books for granted, pulling them off the shelves when we need to look something up, happy to have them at our fingertips for reference; I suspect few of us think about how they came to be.

Anyway, back to the point: I’ve been hard at work on the moth guide. And at this time of year, I’m starting to suffer from winter cabin fever. The last outdoor moths I saw were more than two months ago (the ones I found in the logs, hibernating, don’t count); it’ll be at least another month and a half till the first moth of this year. Browsing all those familiar species names, sorting through images of familiar and interesting and beautiful moths, has brought on an acute attack of moths-on-the-brain. (Fortunately, much less dangerous and much more easily treated than water-on-the-brain, though it’s a chronic condition.)

So I feel the need to shuffle through my pile of moth photos – a rather large pile, that – and share a few here. Please bear with me… :)

6240 - Euthyatira pudens - Dogwood Thyatirid (2) — Hodges 6240 - Euthyatira pudens - Dogwood Thyatirid

The start of the new mothing season is a little like the return of the first migrant birds. Even the common species can cause a thrill when the first one shows up – the recognition of a familiar face, an old friend. The opening photo of a Lettered Sphinx, and the above, a Dogwood Thyatirid, are two of the familiar faces I look forward to in spring. The Lettered Sphinx was the first sphinx moth I ever saw, and at first I didn’t realize it was a sphinx – I’d been expecting something a lot larger! They do say you never forget your first, don’t they?

10016 - Psaphida styracis - Fawn Sallow — 93-1553 (Hodges 10016) - Psaphida styracis - Fawn Sallow

I got this Fawn Sallow last spring, on April Fool’s Day. I love all these fuzzy-bodied sallows, spring fliers most of them, but the Fawn Sallow might have the thickest mane of all of them. This was the first (and only, so far) individual of this species I’d encountered. I love that about mothing: you never know what might come in to your light at a given night or location, and there’s a pretty good chance you’ll find something new to you, even many years on. I’m not many years on yet (this will be only my fourth full season), so I’m still getting lots of new species each year.

9899.1 - Lithophane thujae - Cedar Pinion (3) — 93-2571 (Hodges 9899.1) - Lithophane thujae - Cedar Pinion

And while the new-to-yous are pretty exciting, stuff like this is even more so. This Cedar Pinion came to my light while I was staying over at my mom‘s last year. The species is exceptionally rare in the northeast, I discovered; it’s not mentioned in the (admittedly 20-year-old) Ontario checklist, and was mentioned in passing in the (12-year-old) Quebec guide. On BugGuide and Moth Photographer’s Group there are only two other live-specimen photos besides my own. A bit of a thrill to discover something like that. Like being the person to discover a vagrant western bird species here in the east.

6235 - Habrosyne scripta - Lettered Habrosyne (3) — Hodges 6235 - Habrosyne scripta - Lettered Habrosyne

And then there are the species that you never get tired of looking at, no matter how many might come to your light. Like this Lettered Habrosyne. I got my first Habrosyne a couple of years ago, at the lake house. I’ve caught several more since then, but each one is a delight. I mean, just look at that patterning. How can you resist?

8897 - Diachrysia balluca - Hologram Moth (2) — 93-1179 (Hodges 8897) - Diachrysia balluca - Hologram Moth

And finally, the species that you saw once, long ago, and keep hoping you might get to see again. This is an aptly-named Hologram Moth, with an amazing iridescent green patch in the middle of its back. The first and only one I’ve ever got was caught at my parents’ old house, in my first full season of mothing in 2008. Despite the fact that it’s a northern species, found throughout Ontario, I’m still waiting for another.

But that’s the wonderful thing about mothing: there’s always this year, and you never know what might turn up.

I can’t wait for March.

Lacy cocoon

I had one of those “Hey! I know that!” moments earlier this week when, hiking through the woods on my snowshoes, I paused to check out a little bagworm case on the trunk of a young Trembling Aspen. It was complete coincidence – it’s not as if I don’t see lots of bagworm cases around, so why I stopped for that one, I don’t know – but in glancing the other way, at the aspen beside it, something else caught my eye. And I recognized it immediately. And was immediately excited for the recognition. (Naturally I didn’t have my camera, the one day in weeks I left it at the house, so I had to mark the tree and come back the next day with my macro lens).

Do you recognize it? I briefly mentioned something like it before here, when I posted my book review of Eiseman & Charney’s excellent work, Tracks & Sign of Insects. It reminded me of one of the photos on the cover of the book, and which I also posted a scan of the relevant page from inside.

cocoon of Wockia asperipunctella — House key for scale.

Turns out it’s not quite the same thing. The one on the cover of the book is the cocoon of a spongillafly, a type of neuropteran (looks like a mini caddisfly) associated with freshwater sponges. But the spongillafly cocoons have a white inner cocoon that, even after they hatch and leave, remains behind. My lacy cocoon had no inner cocoon. Even besides that, the spongillafly outer cocoon is built in nearly hexagonal loops. In the one I found, the loops were more rectangular.

This was a key feature. Reading a bit more of the text, the authors say, “The bumelia webworm moth … spins a delicate, golden cocoon with a very coarse, rectangular mesh … Wockia asperipunctella, only recently discovered in Ontario, makes a similar cocoon on aspen and willow.”

Rectangular mesh – check! Found on aspen – check! Located in Ontario – check! Seems like a pretty good match to me!

camouflaged cocoon of Wockia asperipunctella — See it? Centred, about a third of the way down...

Just to be sure, I posted it to BugGuide.net, and Charley Eiseman, one of the authors of the book who happens to frequently patrol BG generously helping out with IDs, agreed with me that this was the likely builder.

I haven’t ever seen the adult moth of Wockia asperipunctella, but it’s a micro, and unless the micros are particularly flashy or notable for some reason, I haven’t paid much attention to them. I’m still working on solidifying my macro identification. The species will be included in our field guide, though. Here’s one of the plate images we’ll be using. It has no official common name anywhere that I could find, but asperipunctella roughly translates to “shaggy-spotted” (and you can see why – the black spots have raised scales), so that’s what I named it: Shaggy-spotted Wockia. I had to resist really hard calling it a Wookie.

Christmas moth

This week has been busy. I handmade my gifts this year, and between those and Christmas baking and other pre-Christmas tasks I’ve been pretty wrapped up. I had a few photos in backlog that I’d been trying to decide between for today’s post, but hadn’t settled on one yet. Then, as I was down in the basement gathering up some wood for the fire, a small moth fluttered in front of my nose and landed on the wall, where it patiently waited for me to get my camera and return. It was as if it was saying to me, write about me!

So I am. It’s just a little guy, a micromoth not more than a centimeter (<1/2″) long. The shape was immediately distinctive: the fairly even rectangle is a characteristic of the genus Agonopterix. This one is A. pulvipennella, Featherduster Agonopterix, as by the large dark patches; there’s usually a small white dot at the bottom of the dark patch, too, but it seems to be obscured on this one. The common name is of my own invention; I couldn’t see any indication of a previously-coined common name, so this is what I chose for the forthcoming field guide. It’s from the scientific name: pulvi means pulverized or dusty, and pennella means feathered or feathers. Neither seem to have any real connection to this species. Technically, pulvipennalla should probably translate to something like dusty-feathered, but I thought featherduster was more fun. Particularly over the alternative of a description-based name like Dark-patched Agonopterix. And that’s how common names are chosen, folks. Yup, surprised me, too, when I looked into it.

It’s a common species of Agonopterix, its larvae feeding on goldenrod, and is one I’ve seen during the winter before. Like many species of insects, including the ubiquitous Asian ladybug, these moths overwinter in their adult stage, and will crawl into cracks in your house where they’re protected. Some might squirm in so far they get confused, and end up coming out the other side during winter thinking it’s spring already. Or sometimes mild spells can do the same thing, and the moth just goes the wrong way when it goes to leave. Most overwintering moths are fairly cold-hardy, so it doesn’t take much warming to coax them out.

It’s funny that he should show up today, because over at Wanderin’ Weeta Susannah also posted about a Christmas moth that turned up at her place yesterday (hers was a Bruce Spanworm, a hardy, late-flying species that can sometimes be found in warmish days through early winter).

Bruce Spanworm

It’s getting to be very late in the year for moths. Winter approaches, and our warm days now are lucky to make double-digits Celsius (>50°F). Hardly anything comes to the porch lights in the evening now, as by nightfall the temperature has dropped too much for anything to be flying. However, there are still some cold-hardy species out and about.

I discovered this one resting on a leaf in the forest when I was out with Raven a few days ago. If it had been on the trunk of a tree, or a fallen log, or even on a dead leaf on the ground, I likely would have walked right by, but it stood out on the green leaf. It’s a Bruce Spanworm (Operophtera bruceata), one of the latest moths to be on the wing. The first ones appear here in late October, and they fly on warm days (and on warmer evenings) through November. They can handle the cooler daytime temperatures because they’ve got a very high surface:volume ratio – that is, they’re very narrow, with lots of surface area, so they absorb the sun’s rays and ambient temperature more quickly than a thick-bodied moth would. (There are thick-bodied moths on the wing now, too; they’re invariably fuzzy, which helps to insulate them.)

They’re very similar to the Autumnal Moth (Epirrita autumnata), which is also a fall flier (as the name suggests) but not quite as late. They first appear in late September, and their flight window barely overlaps with Bruce Spanworm. However, you can easily tell the two apart by the dots along the outer edge of the hindwing – in the Autumnal they’re paired at the end of each vein, while in the Bruce there’s just a single dot. The Bruce is also slightly smaller. The Autumnal below is one I photographed last year.

The day after I saw and photographed this Bruce, which was the first one I’d seen this season, I spotted another fluttering low to the ground in our front yard. By the time I had retrieved my camera, it was gone. It might well be the last moth I see this year, if the long-term forecast is to be believed.

Tussock moth cocoon

Periodically I pause to check the three great, old maples in our front yard for interesting goings-on. I’m not looking for anything particular. An interesting bug, perhaps. Some fungus maybe. Whatever’s happening on the trunks at the time. Sometimes there’s nothing at all that catches my eye. But about a month ago I spotted these. There were three of them, two on the biggest maple, and one on the third. I’ve continued to check on them, from time to time, as I do my maple trunk surveys; they’re still there, and I expect will be for the winter.

It was pretty obvious to me from the outset what they were: those hairy, oval masses couldn’t be anything but moth cocoons. But what was the hard foamy mass on the outside? I had a suspicion, but I took some photos and came inside to confirm.

Sure enough, the answer was on page 71 of the fabulous Tracks & Sign of Insects. The cocoon belonged to a tussock moth. This group of species lays their eggs on the outsides of their cocoons – because the females are flightless, and so don’t travel far.

That answered what. But what about who?

I noticed as I was examining them that inside the hairy cocoons were the hard shells of pupal cases. I couldn’t really tell if there was still a moth in the case or not, so I reluctantly peeled one off the tree to see (I don’t like to disturb things usually, if I can help it). As I flipped it over, I noticed two things. The first was that the case was empty. I hadn’t yet gone in to look up the book at the point that I was examining the cocoon, but if, as I suspected, the white mass was eggs, then it wasn’t a great surprise that the case was empty.

But the other thing that was obvious was the three white spots on the back of the case, remnants of the outfit the individual wore as a caterpillar. This quickly answered the who: this was the cocoon, and egg mass, of a White-marked Tussock Moth (Orgyia leucostigma). Caterpillars of this species are striped lengthwise with yellow and black, bearing three long, dark tufts at the front and rear, and four short, thick white tufts along the back. Very distinctive!

The species overwinters at the egg stage (which makes sense if they were laying them in the fall). Caterpillars are about as generalist as they get. Caterpillars of Eastern North America lists as possible host plants “apple, birch, black locust, cherry, elm, hackberry, hickory, oak, rose, willow…fir, hemlock, larch, spruce and other conifers.” They’re fairly common, so you might well find a cocoon or two if you try checking out some old, ridgy trees.

Here’re a few photos of the species, including one of a female in the act of laying eggs (how cool!).

White-marked Tussock Moth Caterpillar by cotinis on Flickr (CC licenced)

White-marked Tussock Moth, view from behind - Moth is looking "furry"! — White-marked Tussock Moth, view from behind by Vicki's Nature on Flickr (CC licensed)

8316 - Orgyia leucostigma - White-marked Tussock Moth — Adult male White-marked Tussock Moth