Primrose Moth

 

A Common Evening-primrose (Oenothera biennis) in full bloom. The common - some might say "weedy" - native plant is incredibly showy and comes with the added allure of playing host for one of our coolest moths.

I've written about the Primrose Moth (Schinia florida) before, but it's been a while. As it's always a red-letter day when one finds this moth, which I recently did, I must share the experience here.

Probably all species of our native flora play host to caterpillars, the overwhelming majority of which are moth larvae. To take Ohio as a point of reference, about 170 species of butterflies have been recorded. And that includes great rarities and one-off records of vagrants. But there are many thousands of moth species. No one knows exactly how many, indeed, probably no one even has a good handle on how many moth species there might be in the state. One of Ohio's premier moth experts, Diana Platco Brooks, has identified nearly 1,500 species on her 12.5-acre property in southeastern Ohio over the last 15 years or so. Such butterfly to moth ratios probably applies nearly everywhere in eastern North America.

While some moths are generalists, their caterpillars consuming a wide variety of plant species (polyphagous), the great majority tilt towards specialization. The latter might consume members of one family of plants, one genus, or even one species. The caterpillar in the image above is the larva of this post's protagonist, the Primrose Moth. Insofar as I know, it feeds only on primrose in the genus Oenothera, and I have only seen it on Common Evening-primrose (Oenothera biennis).

I was down in Cullowhee, North Carolina recently to attend the amazing Cullowhee Native Plant Conference. It has been going on for about four decades and attracts something like 500 attendees. If you get the opportunity to go, do it. As a bonus, some of the richest biological diversity in eastern North America surrounds the conference site. Insofar as I can ascertain, North Carolina, with its nearly 4,000 native plant species, hosts greater botanical diversity than any state east of the Mississippi River. And all that plant diversity means enormous animal diversity, not the least of which are moths.

Ah! The pink and yellow end of some magical creature protrudes from the closing flower of a primrose. 

In my plenary talk at the Cullowhee conference, which was on moths (based loosely on THIS BOOK), I had worked in the Primrose Moth for the first time in this presentation (which I have given scores of times). So maybe, courtesy of the moth gods, this was karmic payback for plugging the little gem.

There was no way that I was going to enter such a floriferous land and not do some heavy botanizing, and Shauna and I spent two hardcore days exploring the mountains near Cullowhee. At one point, near an overlook along the Blue Ridge Parkway, I noticed a large stand of Common Evening-primrose. Dozens of plants, and the flowers still mostly open as it was mid-morning. So off I set, carefully searching the dozens of plants for the moth above. Finally, with only a few plants left to inspect, Bingo!

We carefully held back a petal to better expose the stunning little moth. After the photo session, we pushed the petal back into place. This was only the third or fourth time that I've found the Primrose Moth, and trust me, I've looked at scads of flowers.

So, if you find yourself around a flowering stand of Common Evening-primrose, and time permits, take a look around and you might be rewarded with one of our most magical moths.