Moths

You might be surprised at how beautiful some moths can be. One of my favourites is the Rosy Maple Moth which is pictured to the right. I found this moth on my back screen door one morning several summers ago. Apparently it likes Silver Maple trees and we have a large one on our side lawn so that may be the reason this moth found its way to my door but I've only seen the species the one time.

Another beautiful moth is a pink night moth. I don't believe that is its scientific name*(* edited note: Primrose moth [Schinia florida]) but I have seen it referred to as that so that's what I'll call it too; for reference purposes here. The Pink Night Moth that I found and photographed was tucked away inside the blossom of an Evening Primrose. This find was only three or four years ago and every summer since I have looked in every blossoming Evening Primrose I find when out for a walk. I noticed this morning that Evening Primrose is now coming into blossom so I shall have to start checking its blossoms again.

A couple of very attractive looking moths shown below display a pattern created with dots and I only was able to id them today with the help of A Field Guide to Moths of Eastern North America (by Charles V. Covell Jr.) which I had purchased recently. I had been told previously that, Anania funebris, shown to the left below is an eight-spotted goldenrod moth, taking its name from its appearance and the plant it feeds on; goldenrod. The brown moth with the white irregular spots seen to the lower right had confused me since 2003 when I had taken its picture. I find when consulting Covell's moth field guide I was partially correct in a way, if I can claim that looking at it brought the word 'confused' to mind, for interestingly enough the moth is called a Confused haploa.

The two pictures shown below are among my favourite moth pictures. Both of these moths are very, very tiny and I purposely left them uncropped to give you an idea of their size. The white one I call simply, little white moth, for I have not identified it yet. The little black moth with the white stripe is unsurprisingly called: White striped black