Another major nocturnal outing, more cool bugs

Last Saturday evening, stretching into Sunday morning, was yet another amazing nocturnal foray. This time we set up lights at an incredible place in southern Highland County, known as Fort Hill. It is managed by the Arc of Appalachia - a conservation organization I have mentioned numerous times of late - and thanks to the intellectual inquisitiveness of their staff, we were able to enter after dark and stay as long as we liked. Indeed, joining John Howard and myself was Nancy Stranahan, Brent Charette, and Tim Pohlar (and family) of the Arc. Several other interested moth'ers were along, including Roy Willman and Kathy Cubert. It was fun talking photography with them. Cheryl Carpenter joined us as did Amy and her partner. Quite a party.

Fort Hill encompasses 1,600 acres and protects a diverse swath of habitat, mostly woodlands. Botanical diversity is enormous - over 800 plant species have been documented - so we knew it would be good. Only two natural phenomena conspired against us this evening: the moon was over half full and bright (mothing is better on darker nights) and the temperature and humidity dropped into the 60's fairly early, eventually reaching the high 50's. The warmer, the better. Nonetheless our evening was highly productive and I would love to repeat on a warm, muggy, moonless night.

The first plant I ran my UV flashlight over produced a slug moth caterpillar. The second plant - a Red Elm, Ulmus rubra - produced this incredible beast. It is a Double-toothed Prominent caterpillar, Nerice bidentata. This is an elm specialist, and has evolved humps on its back that resemble the jagged serrations of an elm leaf. I don't think they are particularly rare, just hard to find. A mature last instar specimen such as this is an especially plum find.

Spotted Apatelodes Moth caterpillars, Apatelodes torrefacta, are usually very common and we found a number of them this night. Note those flashy cherry-red feet! The pair to the far right are the anal prolegs, the middle set of four are the medial prolegs, and three pairs of thoracic prolegs are below the cat's head at the left. The latter are not red and scarcely visible. The prolegs are beset with tiny hooked spines called crochets that allow the caterpillar to apply a viselike grip on branches and leaves.

As summer wanes and fall nears, the singing insect chorus intensifies. Many interesting Orthopteran insects provided a conspicuous chorus on this night, including Nebraska Coneheads, Neoconocephalus nebrascensis. Not hard to see where the "conehead" name comes from, and this species is distinctive in that its cone is inky-black when viewed from below. This group of katydids is extremely charismatic, and the males of many species deliver blisteringly loud songs.

At one point, walking between light setups, we encountered this mating pair of Carolina Leafroller Crickets, Camptonotus carolinensis. This Orthopteran makes no sound, insofar as I am aware. Maybe they use those utterly gargantuan antennae to find each other. After a bit of voyeuring, we left them to their business.

The same Redbud that hosted the mating crickets produced this pair of mating Early Fan-foots, Zanclognatha cruralis. What a great tree. Maybe it had aphrodisiac qualities.

The little button slugs are always crowd-pleasers. This is an Abbreviated Button Slug, Tortricidia flexuosa. A number of interesting slug moths came in, including at least one other button slug species. Had it been a warmer, more humid evening, I bet there would have been tons.

A Drab Prominent, Misogada unicolor. Unicolored it may be, but the moth is quite handsome and architecturally ornate from certain angles. Its caterpillars are specialists on Sycamore, Platanus occidentalis. Some moths are named for the appearance of the adult moths; others for the caterpillar. Had this one been named for the latter, it surely wouldn't be known as the Drab Prominent. The cat is a striking pale green with wavy white lateral lines, a bold whitish dorsal stripe tinged with red, and a forked tail.

Here's the same Drab Prominent, viewed from a different angle. Moth photography is seldom boring. On a busy night in a productive site, as on this evening, there are far too many subjects to work with.

The more I work with prominent moths, the more fascinated that I become with them. Lots of interesting behavior and appearances, both with moths and caterpillars. This is a Gray-patched Prominent, Dasylophia thyatiroides, and what a dead wood mimic it is. The caterpillar is a thing of beauty, and feeds only on Beech, Fagus grandifolia. I have searched a lot of foliage of those trees, but have only seen the caterpillar once. Perhaps they generally feed high in the tree, and out of our sphere of visibility.

This is a Wavy-lined Heterocampa, Heterocampa biundata, a subtle beauty. Its soft green, orange, and brown tones help it blend with lichens, mosses, and tree bark. Unlike the previous two specialist, this moth is polyphagous - its caterpillars eat many species of woody plants.

A Zebra Conchylodes, Conchylodes ovulalis, tests the air with its incredibly long proboscis. Their caterpillars apparently eat members of the sunflower family, but that covers a lot of ground. The Asteraceae is the largest family of flowering plants on the world, and dozens of species occur in Ohio. I have no idea which ones spawn this showy moth. 

We were pleased to see several specimens of this small, dark sphinx: Pawpaw Sphinx, Dolba hyloeus. I need not tell you what its host plant is.

This extremely fresh Walnut Sphinx, Amorpha juglandis, turned up at a light setup tied between two walnut trees. While the caterpillars do eat a few other species of woody plants, Black Walnut, Juglans nigra, does the heavy lifting. The caterpillars are especially notable for their noise-making. When threatened, they make loud whistles by forcing air out of the spiracles (air holes).

You know it's a good mothing night when three Imperial Moths, Eacles imperialis, can easily be posed on a tree for photos. And there were others.

Right in the grill of a very fresh Imperial Moth. For all its beauty, the bat-sized moth is essentially a short-lived flying gonad. Living a week would make it an ancient. Silkworm moths such as this have no functional mouthparts and do not feed. Their sole purpose - other than occasionally feeding bats or other animals - is to find a mate and reproduce. The caterpillar phase is far longer-lived than the adult moth.