In Canada and the USA, there are apparently a little over 750 species of butterfly and 11,000 species of moth known, with new ones still being discovered. There are lots of good butterfly reference materials available; however due to the immense number of moths, and the fact that a lot are extremely small and, to most people's way of thinking, nondescript except for the large silk moths (e.g. Cecropia, Polyphemus, Luna), there are few good sources of reference material for moths. However an excellent, fairly recent moth reference is the Peterson Guide to Moths of Northeastern North America by David Beadle and Seabrooke Leckie, published in 2012. An excellent on-line source of information is the Butterflies and Moths of North America, as noted here as well as Bugguide, in this link.
Some moths are quite visible in broad daylight, such as these first two species. This Hummingbird Clearwing is a type of Sphinx moth, sometimes seen hovering at flowers such as this Wild Bergamot.
Squash Vine Borer |
Bugs and beetles certainly outnumbered the moths by a large margin.
Most were very small. You can see by the fine weave of the sheet that the beetle in this next image is very tiny, probably no more than about 3-4 mm in total length.
Most were difficult to identify, but some actually fit the reference material that I had access to. This next one is a type of ground beetle, probably Chlaenius aestivus.
This is another ground beetle, known as Seedcorn Beetle (Stenolophus lineola).
Others that I photographed are as yet, unnamed. If I find out what they are, I will update this post.
But the purpose of my black-lighting was to attract moths. Again, some of them I was able to match a name to using various reference materials I had.
Epiblema sp. |
Kimball's Palpita (Palpita kimballi) |
Pearly Wood-Nymph (Eudryas unio) |
Lesser Maple Spanworm (Speranza pustularia) |
Lucerne Moth (Nomophila nearctica) |
Oblique-banded Leafroller (Choristoneura rosaceana) |
There may be 'moth-ers' out there who can shed some light on these moths, especially the unnamed ones, so by all means, join in the discussion.
An interesting exercise! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThank-you...I plan to do more in the near future.
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