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