Major Moth Night

 

As always, click the image to enlarge

A group of us enjoyed a superb night of mothing last night at Beth Crane's property in Hocking County. Thanks to Beth and Richard McKee for hosting everyone, and for their excellent hospitality. We were fortunate to have Laura Hughes, John Howard, and Kelly Capuzzi join us - all are superb naturalists and accomplished moth-ers. We had three light setups going and that worked like a charm.

John Howard created this artful display of some heavy hitters that visited our sheets. They are Ash Sphinx, Elm Sphinx, Virginia Creeper Sphinx, Pandorus Sphinx, Imperial Moth, Regal Moth (2), Tuliptree Silkmoth, and Rosy Maple Moth. This was just a fraction of the moths that we saw. There were over 20 Imperial Moths, 6-8 Regal Moths, many sphinxes of various species, and scores of other interesting moths. We finally left at 2 am, and things were still going strong.

These sorts of moth numbers and diversity speaks to a very healthy local ecosystem full of native plant diversity, and largely free of light pollution and other deleterious factors that cause moth declines.

An interesting distant view of one of the mothing stations, John Howard's professional setup. Thanks to Shauna Weyrauch for this image and the next one.

A closer view of one of the setups. Black lights and mercury vapor or other powerful lights lure the moths, and most end up on the white sheets where it is easy to observe and catalog them. Sometime before dawn, the lights are extinguished and the moths shooed away back into the wilds.

Head on with a Regal Moth. This is one of Ohio's largest moths, and they are so large that one has a noticeable heft to it when handled. This moth is densely fuzzy and looks like a stuffed animal. As befits such a large lepidopteran, its caterpillar is also gargantuan and is called a Hickory Horned Devil. See the photo below for an image of one of those hotdog-sized beasts.

Hickory Horned Devils are often likened to a hotdog, as a size comparison. It isn't an exaggeration.

I'm still sorting through my imagery but have lots of good stuff. Including a few rather enigmatic species, and a few that only be described as cute. I'll post up some of those later.