3/3 A different approach

Let's do this backwards

It will take a lot of different approaches to find and identify all of these living things. After my moth encounters last week, I thought I could just keep going out to the porch light any time the sun was down and find any number of moths waiting to be identified. Nope!

So I thought I would spend a little time this morning in, out of the rain, learning about moths. Try to get an idea of how they're organized, when and how to find them - just trying to fill in some of those gaps.

I started here. Pacific Northwest Moths. And that's the beautiful thing about all of this. Nearly every kind of living thing I take an interest in will have a whole site dedicated to it, and experts to reach out to.

Fun fact: Butterflies have a little ball at the end of each antenna.

(www.pestwiki.com)

Horrifying fact: There's a moth in the Pacific Northwest that is 6.5" across - the Polyphemus Moth.

(Wikimedia Commons)

And why was this so viscerally upsetting to me? It's interesting to stop and think about associations with butterflies and moths. Butterflies we see flying around at a distance, from flower to flower on nice summer days. Moths are almost always unexpected. They stumble into our houses, and mindlessly chase whatever source of light they can find. For me, maybe that's a piece of it - the enclosed spaces?  Butterflies have bright colors, moths have the dull brown and grey camouflage. I guess it just all adds up!

But I used to have the same reaction with flying stinging insects - wasps, bees, hornets - and I've softened a little on them since I started trying to identify them. Something about the fear of the unknown just needs to be addressed, perhaps.

On that note:

I snipped this from the Pacific Northwest Moth site. They're coming! But I have a little reprieve before Mothra shows up outside my door.

The distribution there was not uncommon, and it's not too surprising that I haven't seen too many moths in my little explorations. The fact that I found two of them in February was a little surprising, I guess. If I knew them as well as I knew birds, I might even have some ideas about which species would show up this early.

1200 species are in the PNW Moth database, and they sent me off to another site that listed 32 superfamilies for the US. But neither of these gave a quick guide showing how they broke them into these groups. Then I got it narrowed down a little:

The PNW page deals with: "Pacific Northwest moth species within the families Drepanidae, Uraniidae, Lasiocampidae, Saturniidae, Sphingidae, Notodontidae, Erebidae, Euteliidae, Nolidae, and Noctuidae."

Ten

Ten I can deal with. In the spirit of reinventing the wheel, I thought. . . why not make a dichotomous key for this? It couldn't be more than 9 questions to get it narrowed down to a family, right?

But it wasn't happening. Moths are pretty crazy. . . and not always in dichotomous ways. So, in a kind of one-by-one way, here's those ten families: 


1. Drepanidae - Hook-tip Moths

These guys have forewings with hooks at the tip. Easy peasy. 13 species listed in the PNW moth database, so IF I found one, it wouldn't be too too hard to narrow down. 

2. Uraniidae - Pretty much just this one guy:

Wikimedia Commons

The Gray Scoopwing Moth.  Those wings are funny-looking, and should stand out. 

3. Lasiocampidae - Lappet Moths

Oh... I know these guys. Tent Caterpillars. 7 species. Many many summers ago, I squished a whole lot of these that were eating away at some arbor vitaes in the yard.

4. Saturniidae

This is where the Polyphemus above resides. All ten species in here are pretty darn big, and not all are nocturnal. Hopefully I'll remember this when I find a butterfly with funny antennae in the summer...

5. Sphingidae - Sphinx Moths 

These actually do have kind of a distinctive shape, all in all, so I'll include this image of a Eumorphus Pandorus.

By Patrick Coin (Patrick Coin) - Photograph taken by Patrick Coin, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=642730


Many of them have this basic shape, but not all. 34 species in the PNW database.

6. Notodontidae -Prominent Moths

28 species, and the "prominent" part is kind of a hunchback thing - prominent bit/piece sticking up from their back.  Hunchback Moth or Shark Moth may have worked as well. 

7. Erebidae

Yep. I get a little lost here. This supposedly includes tiger moths, lichen moths, and wasp moths. But then. . . on the PNW site, I don't see wasp moths.  I'm not sure what ties this family together, but it's pretty big, with 170 species of moths wrapped up inside.

8. Euteliidae - Batman Moths. . . because they have Euteliidae belts. . .?

Only one species, and it doesn't show up on the wet side of the state.

9. Nolidae - Tuft Moths

Tuft moths have little tufts on their face. Or on their head. Or. . . maybe on their forewings. Or no tuft.  That's what I can tell from the image search. Just 7 species here.

10. Noctuidae - Owlet Moths.

980 species? Ha. oh well. This may be pretty unmanageable! Hopefully I can start finding some and ruling out other families before I get mixed up in this family.

Finding some moths

It's been interesting to read some of the ideas for viewing moths out there. Painting a tree with a mixture of sugar and beer has been suggested. I like the sheet method. Put out a white sheet and shine a light on it at night. Go out later and look at the moths on the sheet!

More to come. . .