West Denmark Family Camp – Mothing – July 2, 2012

Our friend Arlene invited me to give a talk about moths at her family camp in Luck, Wisconsin, and then set up my moth lights in the evening. 

 

Here’s the light set-up – next to the woods, up the hill from the lake.

 

It was a hot, muggy evening so we had thousands of insects – mostly not moths – buzzing and flitting around the sheet and the lights and landing on everyone.  It made it difficult to get near the sheet to see the moths.  But people came to see what was going on, and I think everyone saw at least a few moths.

 

We had several non-insect visitors, including this Wood Frog.

 

We also had some interesting insect visitors besides the moths.

This is a scarab beetle.  Here’s a link to it on BugGuide – I put it there to get an ID – since I don’t know much about beetles.

 

One of the largest caddisflies we saw – it was several inches long.  We had a lot more that were an inch long or less.

 

We saw 8 or 10 Summer Fishflies – with wingspans of about 4 inches.

 

I tried to take pictures of all the moths we saw.  I think I got most of them.  One we saw, but that didn’t stay long enough for a photo was a Beautiful Wood Nymph.  So this one photo was taken at our farm.

 

Small-eyed Sphinx

 

Lesser Maple Spanworm Moth

 

Clemens’ Grass Tubeworm Moth

 

Lucerne Moth

 

Archips grisea – This one doesn’t have a common name.

 

Oblique-banded Leafroller

 

Oak Leaftier

 

Bold-feathered Grass Moth

 

Lappet Moth

 

Forest Tent Caterpillar Moth

 

Confused Eusarca

 

Common Lytrosis

 

Banded Tussock Moth

 

Angulose Prominent

 

Abbreviated Button Slug Moth

 

Maple-Basswood Leafroller

 

Bent-line Carpet

 

Common Tan Wave

 

Sciota vetustella – Another one with no common name

 

Blurry Chocolate Angle

 

I don’t know the species of this one.  It’s in the genus Crambus – usually called a Grass Veneer.

 

Cloaked Marvel

 

And this one I haven’t been able to identify.

 

You can see from all the extra insects in the photos, that there were a lot of insects on the sheet besides the moths!  Thanks to everyone for braving the bugs to come see how mothing works.  It was fun talking to all of you.  I hope some of you will try moth lighting at home sometime.

Here’s the link to my ‘Attracting Moths’ page – it has more information about my light set up, how I take the photographs, and books and web sites where you can start learning about how to identify moths.

Marcie