29 July 2012

NMW: Red-fringed Emerald

It's National Moth Week, and while Urban Dragon Hunters is primarily about dragonflies, we are keen on many other insect taxa as well. Why not try to feature a cool moth every day this week?

We'll finish off the week with one of the beautiful emeralds. This is a Red-fringed or Two-striped Emerald (Nemoria bistriaria, Hodges #7046). Who doesn't love a green moth? Never mind that this species has a brown spring form. BugGuide even has an interesting intermediate form; the scale colors are apparently influenced by pre-emergence temperatures.

Photo by Darrin O'Brien. All rights reserved.


28 July 2012

NMW: Buck moth

It's National Moth Week, and while Urban Dragon Hunters is primarily about dragonflies, we are keen on many other insect taxa as well. Why not try to feature a cool moth every day this week?

Day 6 is yet another diurnal moth, a buck moth (Hemileuca sp., likely H. nevadensis, Hodges#7731, as there were larvae feeding on willows). Buck moths are in the silkworm moth family (Saturniidae), and while not quite a spectacular as many of their relatives, are still quite showy. The caterpillars have urticating spines -- they sting, although the punch varies by species.

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has a nice post about the possible origin of the name "buck moth" and the taxonomy morass that occurs in here in the upper Midwest.

Photo by Darrin O'Brien. All rights reserved.

27 July 2012

NMW: Carrot Seed Moth

It's National Moth Week, and while Urban Dragon Hunters is primarily about dragonflies, we are keen on many other insect taxa as well. Why not try to feature a cool moth every day this week?

Day 5's moth is one that is not native to North America. The Carrot Seed Moth, a.k.a., Greenish-Yellow Sitochroa Moth (Sitochroa palealis, Hodges #4986.1) is a European/Palearctic moth first recorded on this side of the pond in the Upper Midwest in 2002. The larvae feed on umbellifers, especially the well-established non-native Queen Anne's Lace or wild carrot, Daucus carota. The caterpillars are more conspicuous than the ordinary-looking adults, as they weave themselves into the seed heads of the plants; they can be found by searching for these frass baskets.

Photo by Julie Craves, all rights reserved.

26 July 2012

NMW: Chestnut-marked Pondweed Moth

It's National Moth Week, and while Urban Dragon Hunters is primarily about dragonflies, we are keen on many other insect taxa as well. Why not try to feature a cool moth every day this week?

Day 4's little beauty is a Chestnut-marked Pondweed Moth (Parapoynx badiusalis, Hodges #4761). In addition to being pretty, the larvae of this moth have an unusual lifestyle -- they are aquatic. They feed on pondweed (Potamogeton). You can read more about them (and see this photo again!) in a blog post I recently wrote for Audubon Guides, "The Moth that Came from the River."

Photo by Julie Craves. All rights reserved.

25 July 2012

NMW: Carpenterworm moth

It's National Moth Week, and while Urban Dragon Hunters is primarily about dragonflies, we are keen on many other insect taxa as well. Why not try to feature a cool moth every day this week?

For Day 3, we don't have a photo of an adult moth, but only the shell of a couple of pupae. Note the ruler in the photo -- those are centimeters. These empty pupae were extracted from holes in the base of a hardwood tree that were at least the diameter of my thumb.  They belong to Prionoxystus robiniae, the Carpenterworm Moth (Hodges #2693).

The larvae of these moths take two to four years to mature into caterpillars up to three inches long.  As you may have gathered, they feed on the sapwood of trees. I was fascinated by them, and wrote a post on another blog at the time I found them. For the curious, here is what the adults look like.

Photo by Julie Craves. All rights reserved.

24 July 2012

NMW: Squash Vine Borer

It's National Moth Week, and while Urban Dragon Hunters is primarily about dragonflies, we are keen on many other insect taxa as well. Why not try to feature a cool moth every day this week?

Day 2 features one of the many borer moths which are wasp, hornet, or bee mimics (and are thus diurnal). I have a thing for flies that are mimics, and while most moths aren't quite as convincing, they are still pretty cool. This species is the latest I've photographed; it's a Squash Vine Borer (Melittia cucurbitae). As the name indicates, the larvae feed only on Cucurbita. They are especially fond of pumpkins and zucchini, and can be quite a pest of these and related crops. I grow none of these, so this one was welcome in the yard, nectaring on milkweed.


Photo by Julie Craves. All rights reserved.

23 July 2012

NMW: Orange Mint Moth

It's National Moth Week, and while Urban Dragon Hunters is primarily about dragonflies, we are keen on many other insect taxa as well. Why not try to feature a cool moth every day this week?

First up is this Orange Mint Moth (Pyrasuta orphisalis, Hodges #5058). This widespread crambid moth is very small, about the size of a pinky fingernail. It is on mountain mint, Pycnanthemum, and we didn't see them in the yard until we started planting a lot of this genus to attract pollinators. Given the common name, perhaps this isn't surprising, although The Butterflies and Moths of North America gives Monarda (bee balm) and savory (Satureja ?) as their host plant.

Photo by Julie Craves, all rights reserved.

07 July 2012

A Plethora of Anax Exuviae


As noted previously, I've been collecting specimens for the Stable Isotope Analysis project which focuses on Common Green Darners (Anax junius).  This project has a need to collect adults early in the season and mid-season which may help show where the migratory portion of the population moves.  Additionally, exuviae (i.e. the larval skin) are collected which give a more definitive baseline location for the isotope feedback since the larvae don't migrate.  However, finding exuviae can be difficult, but with a proper search image it is possible.

On June 24th, I checked a pond at Lower Huron Metropark (Wayne County) where I've seen good numbers of darner exuviae in past years.  Once again, I found the distinctive skins on dead cattail stalks about 1/2 to 2 feet above the waterline, primarily on the south edge of the pond.  Using my net to coax the delicate skins off the vegetation, I was able to collect 8 exuviae.  While doing this, I had several Common Green Darners (A. junius) and two or three of the uncommon Comet Darner (A. longipes) flying around my net.  Of course, they wouldn't do this if I was prepared to swing.

I didn't attempt to ID the species of the exuviae and had just assumed they were A. junius.  At home, I examined them under magnification and found 7 of the 8 to be A. longipes!  Only one A. junius for the project (in the vial).  ;^(





On June 27th, during my lunch hour, I checked a retention pond of an abandoned subdivision in Novi (Oakland County) that is ringed by cattails.  I began searching for exuviae and spied several darner skins along the south edge of the pond (I don't know if there is anything significant about this).  While collecting with my net again, I had multiple A. junius and a single A. longipes fly by.  This day's collection included 6 exuviae of A. junius.  This is a photo of a Black Saddlebags (Tramea lacerata) exuvia at the same location:




On July 4th, I returned to the Lower Huron Metropark pond and found 2 A. junius exuviae in the 30 minutes I had to search.  Of course, I had male and female A. longipes flying around, in addition to a few A. junius


The number of Comet Darners (A. longipes) this year is amazing to me.  The first voucher for MI was a nymph in Livingston County in 1996.  It was some years later before the next vouchers were obtained. Julie and I obtained the first county records for Lenawee (2003), Wayne (2007), and Oakland (2007).  Of course, others have observed this species flying in additional locations, but it seems the numbers have "exploded" in the past few years. Finding so many exuviae of this species at one location as noted above is interesting.  Could it have been influenced by mild (or nonexistent) winter we experienced in 2011/12?