The black-winged dahana, Dahana atripennis, is an inch-long, primarily black moth with a red abdomen, orange head, iridescent blue thorax, and two yellow stripes on its black wings. As far as I can tell from photos on bugguide.net, both sexes have those long, attractive, black feathered antennae (or all photos on bigguide.net are of males!)….
Tag: moth
Salvinia Stem-Borer
A small (1cm) white and brown mottled moth with an astonishingly close resemblance to its cousin, S. ecclesialis, the Salvinia stem-borer feeds on many types of aquatic plants, including water lettuce (Pistia stratiotes) and, of course, Salvinia rotundfolia, a water fern. Since its caterpillars can do a lot of damage to those plants, even to…
Spiderling Plume Moth
Oh, how I love these little guys! This plume moth looks almost completely different from the other plume moth I recently posted — the ends of the forewings, the little poofs on the joints of the hind legs, the pattern on the abdomen — and yet they are both plume moths in the family Pterophoridae….
Belfrage’s Plume Moth
Plume moths (family Pterophoridae, which includes several genera) share this striking resting position, where the forewings are extended laterally and tightly closed up. (Open, the forewings have several bedraggled, feathery bristles beneath.) Various Pterophorids are pests of crops like artichokes and of ornamental plants; some are used for biological control of invasive plant species. These…
Oak Beauty Caterpillar
There is a surprisingly large number of moths in the family Geometridae whose caterpillars “look like a stick”. Beyond that very general description, the caterpillars have huge variation: little pinstripes, big, bold black markings, warts and bumps and protuberances, and generally it is very difficult to pin down just which Geometrid moth caterpillar, or inchworm,…
Episemasia cervinaria caterpillar
Ordinarily I prefer using the common name as the title for the post, but this caterpillar, and the moth it will become, has no common name, and unfortunately “Geometrid Moth Caterpillar” does not narrow it down far enough. Its scientific name is Episemasia cervinaria. For those who follow Hodge nomenclature, this is Hodge #6714. When…
Striated Lichen Moth
You’d think there’d be pages and pages written on this glorious little orange and black fellow, but no: Wikipedia has three whole sentences on the striated lichen moth (Cisthene striata). They’re about 10mm long, and differentiated from a number of similarly patterned species by the light gray stripes on the forewings. The Peterson Field Guide…
Stained Glass Moth
This gorgeous little girl (males have big, unique “tufts” along their abdomens) is a stained-glass moth or assembly moth, Samea ecclesialis. These very common moths are notable for being abundant, flying all year round, and for being of “no reported economic importance” (does that phrase bother anyone else?). They range all over North and South…
Southern Emerald Moth
The delightful, (1/2″ wide) Synchlora frondaria is most notable for its larvae, tiny caterpillars which disguise themselves by “gluing” pieces of plants and flowers to themselves so they look like debris. (From this behavior comes the common name “camouflaged looper”, since the caterpillars are “looper” caterpillars which form loops with their body (like all inchworms)…
Pink-striped Oakworm Moth
This fuzzy little pink-to-orange silk moth of the family Saturniidae is found across Canada and the US. The females are larger (maybe an inch and a half long); the males have large transparent spots on their wings. Both sexes have the little white spot on each wing. In Florida, these guys reproduce year round. Males…
Ailanthus Webworm Moth
This tiny (1 cm) day-flying moth is actually native to Florida (so it’s funny I found this one in Indiana). The moth’s larvae used to live almost exclusively on the paradise tree (Simarouba glauca) in Florida, but when the “tree of heaven” (Ailanthus altissima) was introduced to the US from China, the ailanthus webworm moth…
Io Moth
The io moth, Automeris io, is notable for large eyespots in the middle of the hind wings. There are seven species in the US; Automeris io is the only one found in Florida. Its range extends through most of the eastern US. These moths are sometimes also called the corn emperor moth and peacock moth….