A caterpillar with a taste for basil

I have two pots of basil on my porch for fresh basil leaves. Everything was going well with big plants with big leaves full of flavor and fragrance. One afternoon, I went to get a few large basil leaves. I was going to make an omelet with Gruyère cheese, onions, crushed garlic, cherry tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and mushrooms. And fresh basil.

When I looked into one of the pots, there on the largest plant was this strikingly patterned green caterpillar. I’d never seen anything like it before. It reminded me of a sphinx moth caterpillar. But there was no horn or even a bump on the last segment. The head seemed to have the wrong shape, too. Maybe it was a cutworm caterpillar (Noctuidae: Noctuinae), not a sphinx (Sphingidae)?

A search of Noctuidae in Caterpillars of Eastern North America (David L. Wagner, © 2005) didn’t yield anything similar. My next step was to go through photos at BugGuide of caterpillars in the Subfamily Noctuinae, focusing on the tribes Orthosiini, Tholerini, Hadenini, and Leucaniini. I chose these tribes because species in them are frequent visitors to my moth light, so it seemed worth a shot.

After many pages at BugGuide, I was at the genus Melanchra. The first species to show up was Melanchra adjuncta (hitched arches), and my caterpillar looked just like it. To be sure, I continued on a little more but found nothing similar.

Basil isn’t the only plant Melanchra adjuncta eats. Their palate is open to a wide variety of herbaceous plants and even leaves of some woody plants. After eating for a few hours, the caterpillar left, perhaps to enjoy other plants on my porch.

Discovering the Red-streaked Mompha, a beautiful tiny moth

*Mompha eloisella* was probably attracted to the many *Oenothera biennis* plants nearby.

This is Mompha eloisella (Red-streaked Mompha), a tiny moth with beautiful satiny white wings speckled with symmetrically placed dark brown spots on the head, thorax, and wings, and red diagonal lines on the wing tips. The patterning of the wing tips resembles a face, but who or what will notice something that small and possibly be deterred by it? Or maybe that’s what the markings are for at all.

Mompha eloisella is in the family Momphidae, which worldwide contains at least 115 species. In North America, there are 45 species just in the genus Mompha and probably many more yet to be discovered and described. All are tiny and have unique patterns, often colorful, on their wings. The larvae of most Mompha species feed on plants in the Onagraceae (evening primrose family) as stem, flower, or fruit borers or as leaf miners. Mompha eloisella larvae are stem borers in evening primrose (Oenothera spp.). This one may have been attracted to the small stand of Oenothera biennis growing in my garden.

Mompha eloisella is widespread in the US, but available range maps show it as not present in Minnesota. Now we know it does occur in Minnesota, with this first sighting more than 120 miles north of a previous sighting in Wisconsin.

This isn’t the first Mompha moth I’ve seen here. There are four other species, all very tiny and beautifully patterned. The small size of these moths makes them easy to miss and difficult to photograph, but with a little effort and patience, they can be found and sometimes photographed clearly. Of course, not all of my Mompha photos are clear, but clear enough. They seem skittish, which also makes photographing them a challenge.

To attract more Mompha moths, I have planted Oenothera biennis, Epilobium angustifolium (fireweed), and let the weedy annual Epilobium coloratum (willow-herb) have a place in my flower garden. Not only are these plants food for Mompha moth larvae, but their flowers, sweet with nectar, are food sources for bees, small and large, and even hummingbirds. After blooming, the plants continue to benefit wildlife. A few days ago, I saw an eastern goldfinch in my flower garden feeding on the small seeds of evening primrose.

References and sources:

Genus Mompha https://bugguide.net/node/view/41654

Species Mompha eloisella – Red-streaked Mompha – Hodges#1443 https://bugguide.net/node/view/67246

Mompha eloisella (Clemens, 1860) http://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/species.php?hodges=1443

A more technical description of this Mompha species, and several others, can be found at the Moths of North Carolina website.

A new moth – Amydria effrentella

A new moth species for the checklist: Amydria effrentella. I photographed this one on July 23, 2022 during National Moth Week. My first thoughts were that this moth was some member of Family Tortricidae maybe in Olethreutini or Eucosmini two tribes in that family with long narrow-bodied moths. But that was far off the mark as repeated searches on the Moth Photographers Group bore out. All I could tell after that was this moth wasn’t like anything I’d seen yet.

One night I decided to use an image search. Of course, most of the results were wrong, but one tiny thumbnail linked to Bug Guide seemed close. So I clicked it and there was a photo of a moth that looked similar to mine. Amydria effrentella, is a moth in the Family Tineidae (Clothes Moths), Subfamily Acrolophinae (Burrowing Webworm Moths). The Moth Photographers Group provides a range map for Amydria effrentella showing it to be widespread.

Tineidae contains at least nine subfamilies north of Mexico with 190 species in 54 genera. For those genera and species whose life histories are known the larvae feed on things such as fur, feathers, skin, scales, bird and small mammal dung, fungi, lichens, and detritus (detritivores) the dead particulate organic material such as is found in leaf litter. Only a few species are known to feed on living plants.

What little information there is on Amydria effrentella indicates that its larvae typically construct “long silken tubes underground or on/in plant detritus and feeding primarily on plant debris as well as living plants, rarely coprophagous or mycetophagous.” Other reports have found it feeding on dried nest material in the burrows of mountain beavers. Pupation takes place in a coarse cocoon or in the larval tube.

Taxonomy

Kingdom Animalia (Animals)

Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)

Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)

Class Insecta (Insects)

Order Lepidoptera (Butterflies and Moths)

Superfamily Tineoidea (Tubeworm, Bagworm, and Clothes Moths)

Family Tineidae (Clothes Moths)

Subfamily Acrolophinae (Burrowing Webworm Moths)

Genus Amydria

Species effrentella (Amydria effrentella – Hodges#0334)

Sources Cited

Bug Guide

Moth Photographers Group

Neotropical Tineidae. II: Biological Notes and Descriptions of Two New Moths Phoretic on Spiny Pocket Mice in Costa Rica. (Lepidoptera Tineoidea). Donald R. Davis, Dale H. Clayton, Daniel H. Janzen and Anne P. Brooke. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington. 88(1). 1986. pp. 98-109.

The Tineoidea and Gracillarioidea. (Donald R. Davis & Gaden S. Robinson, 1998) from “Handbook of Zoology / Handbuch der Zoologie“

Flower flies

Syrphid fly on flower — ***Helophilus fasciatus on Lindley’s aster (Symphyotrichum ciliolatum) looking for pollen and nectar.***

On a warm late summer day if you walk into a field of flowers particularly yellow flowers like goldenrods you might think you have stepped into a swarm of bees or wasps. There is intense buzzing and many small yellow and black insects on the flowers and flying all around you. But despite all appearances these are not bees or wasps at all. They are flies. Syrphid flies, also known as flower flies and hover flies, to be more exact, and there are many species that mimic bees and wasps, a good strategy if you are trying to fend off predators.

Syrphid flies are true flies in the Order Diptera (“two wings”) and Family Syrphidae. Adult syrphid flies feed on nectar, pollen, and sugary secretions from aphids. You can use their love of sweets to attract them with mixture of sugar or honey and water sprayed on surfaces like tree trunks in open areas. When moving about on flowers syrphid flies assist in the pollination of many plant species including crops we grow.

Eristalis transversa on sawtooth sunflower (Helianthus grosseratus). Small hairs on the body of the fly are dusted with pollen. It will probably eat most of the pollen but enough will be spread across the flower head to ensure pollination.

The larvae have more varied diets depending on the species. Some syrphid fly larvae feed on decaying plant matter, damp wood (perhaps for the bacteria and fungus which are more nutritious?), and subterranean parts of plants. Others prey upon aphids, scale insects, thrips, and similar sap-sucking insects and can be beneficial in crop fields and gardens. Some species lurk in ant nests where they disguise themselves with chemical secretions and eat ant larvae.

Syrphid larvae in the tribes Eristalini and Sericomyiin live in muddy stagnant water, even cesspools, where they feed on detritus. A long breathing tube from the anal segment pokes above the water to access the air. This long breathing tube has earned them the name “rat-tailed maggots”.

I recently bought “Field Guide to the Flower Flies of Eastern North America” and have found it very helpful in figuring out species of syrphids that live in my area. The book is well illustrated and includes descriptions and range maps. In the descriptions, the authors have included flowers that species typically visit if known. I have been able with this book to identify three syrphids (Eupeodes americanus, Sericomyia chrysotoxooides, Toxomerus marginatus) that had been in my “unknown” files for several years. And I’ve identified three others I photographed last week (Eristalis dimidiata, Eristalis transversa, Sphaerophoria philanthus).

Below is a small gallery of some of the syrphid flies I’ve seen here over the years.