Yellow-striped Armyworm Moth
This looks like the Yellow-striped Armyworm (Spodoptera ornithogalli) moth featuring a delightfully intricate and attractive pattern on those wings. There are shapes, lines, blurry patches and designs within designs. This late August sighting knew how to show off its subtle beauty.
Read MoreExplicit Arches
While I have not posted too many moths lately, I have kept on mothing, as a young Roger Tory Peterson did, throughout the summer. It is time consuming to go through the photos that I take of what I find at my lights, especially when trying to identify eight or ten or more new species. Every couple of weeks there are different species occurring as flight seasons shift through the year. Some of that identification is going to have to wait for the winter. Nevertheless, I discovered this outrageously cool individual last night that I had to share now. Naturally it was on a shutter on the side of...
Read MoreHeating Up
Things are heating up! We are near the hottest part of the calendar year, and this week will be another warm one in the Northeast. All of the hot temperatures and sunny days are only making it livelier for butterflies, reptiles, wildflowers, dragonflies, feeding early migrant birds…there is a lot to see outdoors right now! Our staff is hard at work in active field projects across multiple states every day of the week, educating children of all ages as well as adults, discovering unexpected, rare or endangered life, and making a difference in pushing forward a passion for the...
Read MoreSuzuki’s Promalactis (Promalactis suzukiella)
Happy National Moth Week! We will be showing you many cool species over the next week so we can all appreciate these incredible insects even more. I have a bunch of individuals that I still have to key out from mothing during the past couple of months, and I have tried to do some field work at least every week or two with them. This was one of my first finds last night, and I swear that I knew immediately when looking at it that it would be a non-native species. It seemed divergent to me in some way. Even though many North American moths are staggeringly beautiful, with vibrant shades, odd...
Read MoreBanded Tussock Moth
This is the Banded Tussock Moth (Halysidota tessellaris), a species I particularly loved discovering with that blue and orange mohawk look! It decided to stay very close to the porch light. It ended up a little too close getting some cobwebs on it that you can see in the profile view. However, it seemed to have been able to shake them off because the next time I checked on what was at my lights I did not see it. The more mothing I do the more addictive it becomes, and I can see why Roger Tory Peterson spent so much time on it…but I cannot possibly imagine how he did it without...
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