Are you stuck?

Wandering in the woods is a favorite activity of mine and one of the ways I find new insect and other species on my land. One afternoon in mid-October while out walking along the edge of a tamarack swamp and upland deciduous-coniferous forest I saw this beautiful caterpillar with its head buried in the forest duff. Its brilliant glowing green color caught my eye immediately. Looking more closely I saw oblique pale blue, dark blue, white, and yellow stripes on each segment. And then there was the blue horn at the tail with small black dots. Its behavior was also puzzling. Why was its head partly buried in the duff?

Caterpillars with tail horns are typically some species of the sphinx moth family (Sphingidae) although not all larvae in this family have tail horns. This made my work a bit easier than say finding some small yellow and brown striped caterpillar (a future post). The first step in finding out the species was to search for images using the phrase “green sphinx caterpillar blue stripes”. This led to an abundance of photos some of which looked like my caterpillar. One was the Tobacco Hornworm (Manduca sexta) but it lacks the yellow stripes, has blue lines in a series of dots, and the horn can be white, reddish, or yellow. A closer fit was the Wild Cherry Sphinx Moth (Sphinx drupiferarum) but it also lacks yellow stripes, has pale blue stripes, and a reddish-brown horn. As its name suggests the Wild Cherry Sphinx Moth feeds on cherry (Prunus) a few scraggly shrubs of which were in growing in the area.

None of the Sphinx Moth larva images were like this caterpillar except for the Laurel Sphinx Moth (Sphinx kalmiae). It was off to BugGuide and the Moth Photographer’s Group where the description and photos seemed to confirm this.

Continuing my research I found another website, Sphingidae of the Americas linked from the Moth Photographers Group page on Sphinx kalmiae, that is very helpful in identifying Sphinx Moth caterpillars. Sphingidae of the Americas is dedicated to all Sphinx Moths in North, Central, and South America, and the Caribbean and includes photos of larval, pupal, and adult stages with information on distribution, flight times, and larval host plants (when known).

Description, Range, Life History of the Laurel Sphinx Moth

Principle larval host plants are in the Oleacea (Olive Family) and include species of ash (Fraxinus), fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus), common lilac (Syringa vulgaris), and privet (Ligustrum). Laurel Sphinx Moth larva have also been reported feeding on hackberry (Celtis occidentalis, Ulmaceae), mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia, Ericaceae), yellow bush honeysuckle (Diervilla lonicera, Caprifoliaceae), and mountain holly (Nemopanthus mucronata, Aquifoliaceae). Growing at the location where I found this caterpillar are black ash trees and yellow bush honeysuckle. There is also winterberry (Ilex verticillata) which is in the same family as mountain holly. It would be interesting to know whether the Laurel Sphinx larvae eat this also. Whether they eat mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) or not is questionable as the species epithet “kalmiae” is probably from the name of the 18th century naturalist Pehr Kalm and not from laurel plants (also named after him). Adult moths nectar at flowers usually at night but can be attracted to baits of fermented fruit mixed with sugar and beer.

The Laurel Sphinx Moth is a medium-sized moth with a wingspan of 7.5 to 10 cm. The forewings are yellow-brown with some fine dark brown lines along the wing veins. The reniform spot (a kidney-shaped marking found on the forewings of many moth species) is black. The underwings are also yellow-brown but with broad dark brown antemedial and postmedial bands.

Laurel Sphinx Moth occurs in the eastern half of the United States from Maine to North Carolina and west to Texas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska, and north to Newfoundland, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan in Canada.

Taxonomy

Class Insecta – Insects
Order Lepidoptera – (Butterflies, Skippers, and Moths)
Superfamily – Bombycoidea (Silkworm, Sphinx, and Royal Moths)
Family – Sphingidae (Sphinx Moths)
Subfamily – Sphinginae
Tribe – Sphingini
Genus and species – Sphinx kalmiae (Laurel Sphinx Moth)

So, was this caterpillar stuck in the duff or in any sort of trouble? No, as it turns out there are many moth species in Sphingidae whose larvae burrow into loose soil just before pupating which is what this one was doing. If all goes well this winter then come late May or early June an adult Laurel Sphinx Moth will emerge and begin the cycle all over again. Maybe I’ll see the adult Laurel Sphinx Moth this coming summer sipping on overripe banana mush and beer.

SOURCES AND MORE INFORMATION

H. M. Bower (1961). Food Plants of Sphingidae in Wisconsin. Journal of the Lepidopterists’ Society. Vol.15 , No. 1:64.

H. M. Bower (1963). Additional Note on Food Plant of Sphinx kalmiae. Journal of the Lepidopterists’ Society. Vol. 1, No. 17:36.

R. W Hodges (1971). The Moths of America North of Mexico. Fasicle 21. Sphingoidae. Hawkmoths. London, E. W. Classey: 158 pages.

C. Messenger (1997). The Sphinx Moths (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae) of Nebraska. Transactions of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences, 24: 89-141.

A. P. Platt (1969). A light weight collapsible bait trap for Lepidoptera. Vol. 23, No. :97-101.

Bug Guide website

Moth Photographers Group website

Butterflies and Moths of North America website

Sphingidae of the Americas website

A Winter of Mothing

Acrobasis betulella

Unknown Micro-moth

Crambidae

Crambus agitatellus

Chrysoteuchia topiarius

Crambus bidens

Crambidae

I’ve been going through my photos of moths from last summer and fall while the snow here slowly melts, comes back again, and then melts some more. As I go through my files of moth photos I am beginning to realize that there may be several hundred moth species in my township. At last count (March 30) I have 147 identified to species and another 175 unidentified species for a total of 322 species. That is a little bit over my original estimate of 300 species in my township. I am going to have to revise that number upwards a bit. The current estimate of moth species in the state of Minnesota where I live is placed at 1,503 so there may be another 300 or more species on top of what I have found.

Digital photos of the unidentified moths are kept in folders named Crambids (23 subfolders, some shown above), Micro-moths (35 subfolders, some shown above), Darts and Prominents (50 subfolders), Tussock Moths (6 subfolders), and many as just “Moth” (55 subfolders) for those in the Geometridae or moths I can’t place in any group. I think I may break that one up into “Geometrids” and “Others”.

There are still many more photos to sort through and the next group to be separated are the Plume Moths (Pterophoridae). This is an interesting group of moths that look like some sort of fixed-wing aircraft. There are three Plume Moths species subfolders (see below) but more might be added later. Moth caterpillars and cocoons also have their own folder called “Unknown Caterpillars” with just three species left until I find more this summer.

Plume Moth

Now that I have some of the moths separated and each in its own folder I can begin tackling identification in a more systematic way. Of course no single field guide or website will have all the species possibly present in a geographic region but by getting these photo specimens identified to family or better yet to genus I can narrow my search efforts and maybe hit upon the answer. Right now I am working on the Crambidae or Crambid Moths commonly known as Grass Veneers and Snout Moths. A few days ago the unidentified Crambid files had 29 unknowns. Now it is down to 23 unknowns after confirming three species (Crambus bidens, C. agitatellus, and Chrysoteuchia topiarius) and tentatively identifying three more (Crambus pascuella, C. perlella, and Microcrambus elegans). It is progress.

More progress below with two moth larvae tentatively identified (Acronicta impressa, Melanchra assimilis) and three with more confidence (Trichordestra legitima, Erannis tiliaria, Pyrrhia experimens). To that I should add that I have found two errors in my checklist but these are now corrected. One was in the right genus (Eucosma) but wrong species (E. dorsisgnatana not E. similiana both very similar) and the other was a species in a look-alike genus (Macrochilo litophora not Zanclognatha pedipilalis).

Acronicta impressa

Melanchra assimilis

Trichordestra legitima

Pyrrhia exprimens

Erannis tiliaria

Warm weather is still in the future it seems but when it does get here and the ice and snow start to melt I will be out in the woods and fields looking for moths and other things that are waking up after a long and sometimes cold winter.

A Summer of Mothing, Part 1

Catacola concumbens

Herpetogramma thestealis

Cingilia catenaria

Xanthia tatago

So I’m wondering how to begin this new blog and have decided to write a little bit about my mothing adventure last summer. It all began one morning in June when my Canon Rebel camera broke and I was left with just my Samsung cell phone and its camera. Up until that point I had not used the cell phone camera much and what I had taken with it was not that good. Now, with my favorite camera broken and short on funds for repairs or a replacement I had to learn to use the cell phone. I decided to photograph the moths that came to the porch light at night to learn more about the cell phone camera.

A few nights a week as sunset approached I would turn on the porch light. When it got dark I would carefully open the door and look around the light to see what had flown in. I was seldom disappointed. Warm humid nights were the best for moths. As the weeks went on it became apparent that there was a progression of moth species. Different moths have different flight times and very few will be seen all summer. And moths aren’t the only things attracted to the lights. Beetles, harvestmen, thrips, caddisflies, midges, and leaf hoppers all came to the light. I’m sure the harvestmen were hunting for small insects although they seem willing to eat anything. One was tasting a mix of molasses and overripe fruit I put out to attract moths.

Arctia cajas_014312A — *Arctia caja*, seen one night (August 1) and not again. It is one of the tiger moths.

I keep a list of the various plants and animals on my property adding to it whenever I find a new species. When I began my mothing project I had documented about 30 species or about two species a year. When the summer ended I had added another 102 moth species and many more unidentified but saved as photos. During my moth adventure last summer I found three sources extremely helpful for identifying moths. The first one is the Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Northeastern North America by David Beadle and Seabrooke Leckie. The other two are the BugGuide website and the Moth Photographers Group website. And now I have found another source to consult: Butterflies and Moths of North America (BAMONA).